Photo by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn

Deborah Willis

Deborah Willis—MacArthur and Guggenheim fellow—is a celebrated author, photographer, and NYU professor who lives in New York City.

Deborah Willis—MacArthur and Guggenheim fellow—is a celebrated author, photographer, and NYU professor who lives in New York City.

Awards

Winner — NAACP Image Award, 2010

Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs
Deborah Willis, Emily Bernard
Hardback, 2010
A stunning, visual biography of Michelle Obama that finally puts her phenomenal fame into a cultural and historical context we can all understand.
Girlfriend on Mars: A Novel
Deborah Willis
E Book
Longlisted for the Giller Prize

A Scientific American Best Staff Read of 2023

A funny, poignant, and page-turning debut novel that skewers billionaire-funded space travel in a love story of...
Girlfriend on Mars: A Novel
Deborah Willis
Paperback, 2025
Longlisted for the Giller Prize

A Scientific American Best Staff Read of 2023

A funny, poignant, and page-turning debut novel that skewers billionaire-funded space travel in a love story of...
Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers: 1840 to the Present
Deborah Willis, Robin D G Kelley, Kalia Brooks
25th Anniversary Edition, Hardback, 2025
The first comprehensive history of Black photographers, Reflections in Black returns in this ground-breaking, magnificently produced pictorial collection of African American life
Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers: 1840 to the Present
Deborah Willis, Robin D G Kelley, Kalia Brooks
25th Anniversary Edition, E Book
“Nothing less than an epic of Homeric proportions . . . Willis’s magnificent gathering of images . . . rewrites American history.” —Robin D. G. Kelley