Gelise Pearl was born and raised in New Orleans. Only a week into her senior year of high school, she lost her home when Hurricane Katrina hit and the London Avenue Canal breach flooded her Gentilly neighborhood.  Along with her family and classmates from Benjamin Franklin High School, she helped rebuild her home and school in time to graduate. During her studies at LSU, she worked as a research assistant with the Department of Sociology, conducting door-to-door interviews with New Orleanians on their experiences with Hurricane Katrina. She earned her doctorate from the University of New Orleans and now practices as a licensed psychologist.

Gelise first became serious about writing during her senior year of college when she explored the world of screenwriting.  Her screenplay Do You Know What it Means?, a dramedy that follows the rebuilding journey of a family and church community in post-Katrina New Orleans, was selected as a quarter finalist in the Page International Screenwriting Awards competition. During her graduate studies, she honed her technical writing skills and published research in multiple peer-reviewed scientific journals.  Her first study, The Role of Race in the Association between Corporal Punishment and Externalizing Problems won the Outstanding Graduate Student Poster Award at the Society for Research in Human Development and was later published in The Journal of Child & Family Studies. Today, she pursues her strongest interest in the craft: writing novels.  Oleanders in June is her first published book, although its unpublished predecessor, In Plain Sight, was completed three years earlier.  Click hereto learn more about the In Plain Sight series.

Gelise is still proud to call New Orleans home today. When she isn’t running her private practice or working on her next novel, Gelise can be found kayaking in Bayou St. John, visiting the Audubon Zoo, or strolling through City Park with her family.  On the weekends, she likes to down an unhealthy amount of coffee and jam out to jazz, boogie, and funk from her favorite New Orleans legend, Dr. John.