Click photo of Raining Deer to see her publications
Visit the website of author Raining Deer
Photo by A.D. Lingo
About Raining Deer, Author
Edited by Winifred Muhsinah Abdullah
Raining
Deer,
also known as Jeanette Stephens-El, is a breast cancer survivor/Life Coach and
native of South Jersey. She lived in Miami, Florida for 24 years before moving
back north in 2001. During her prolific stay in Miami, she wrote for several
regional newspapers; was creator and editor-in-chief of Southern Dawn Magazine;
publicist for Philip Michael Thomas (during and after Miami Vice); a
founding director of a writers workshop and the annual Pan African Bookfest &
Cultural Conference. She served as executive director of the African American
Caribbean Cultural Arts Commission and on boards of various artistic and
performing arts organizations. She was a Leadership Miami graduate and a
Price-Waterhouse nominee for the Up & Comers Award.
Raining Deer is a member of the United People of the Cherokee Nation and the Cox-Osceola Seminole Reservation in Orange Springs, Florida by virtue of her marriage to the tribe’s medicine man, Thunder Horse Nokus Harjo (Wayne Bowen) by Chief Little Dove Beaufort. An African wedding was also performed by Chief Adenibi S. Ajamu. So that she walks in balance, Raining Deer honors both her Native American and African ancestry. She is an “Iyeska” which is Lakota for spiritual interpreter, and is the author of BCV – Rites of Passage for Breast Cancer Victors; and T-Time: A Rites of Passage Manual for the Adolescent Female (Author House 2005). Raining Deer has a son, Sage, from the union with Thunder Horse.