“The fact that I’m not a household name is what forces me to make that next step,” said author Lyah Beth LeFlore. “I want to be that – and I’m determined to do it.”
While she is definitely working to make more of a name for herself, LeFlore’s accomplishments in the entertainment and literary industries are comparable to those of many national celebrities. In less than 40 years, she has managed a successful career as a television executive – working with small-screen icon Dick Wolf (legendary television producer and the mind behind the Law and Order franchise) in addition to becoming an acclaimed author.
Honestly, what can be said about native daughter Lyah Beth LeFlore that hasn’t been said in Essence Magazine – where she has been featured in their bestseller’s list and profiled in the 25th and 35th anniversary commemorative editions? How can her love and skill for writing be proved better than by her appearance as co-author alongside the names of Eddie and the late Gerald LeVert on the New York Times Bestseller’s list?
As the daughter of poet Shirley LeFlore and trumpeter Floyd LeFlore, her last name has been floating in local artistic and literary circles since the 1960s. Both her parents were members of the Black Artists Group, or BAG.
Her greatest successes have come through the career she had been avoiding her entire life, because of the legacy attached. “I had always been running from writing,” LeFlore said. “But it was just burning inside me.”
A graduate of St. Louis Public Schools’ Visual and Performing Arts High School and Stevens College of Columbia, Mo., LeFlore moved to New York in 1991.
“I had the glitter and stars in my eyes, and my intention was to go and break ground in whatever way I could in New York,” LeFlore said. “I just knew I wanted to go and do great things.”
She didn’t have a career path in mind (except for not becoming a writer) when she stumbled upon television through an entry-level position at Nickelodeon.
In less than five years she had become vice president of television for Uptown Music, working with some of the greatest R&B artists of the 1990s, including Jodeci, Mary J. Blige and (as he was then known) Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs.
Back when the Fox TV network was in its infancy and still catered to the African-American audience, LeFlore worked to pull together those memorable artist performances that closed out the show New York Undercover. Talent ranged from a then relatively unknown Erykah Badu to Eddie and Gerald LeVert.
“No matter how many projects I’ve worked on, that’s the project that sets the tone for me as a person in this industry and hopefully a force in this industry,” LeFlore said.
The instant on-set chemistry between LeFlore and the LeVerts resulted in a close relationship with the family. And although it was bittersweet because of Gerald’s untimely death, her observations of the interaction of the two men became the subject of the book that landed LeFlore national acclaim.
Before she tackled nonfiction, the writing legacy LeFlore had been running from caught up with her, jumped on her back and resulted in the well received works Cosmopolitan Girls and Last Night A DJ Saved My Life.
“It’s either the white character, which doesn’t necessarily tell who we are,” LeFlore said about the state of fiction geared to females, commonly referred to as Chick Lit. “Or it’s taking it to the place of the streets – which is not all of us.”
A street-but-savvy character is the focus of DJ, in the form of Destiny Day. She is a young woman from East St. Louis who moves to New York and makes a name for herself as a major club promoter. In addition to her mother’s work as a wordsmith, LeFlore’s inheritance of her father’s love for music is apparent in the chapters in the book and the continuous musical themes throughout.
LeFlore is currently in the process of adapting a screenplay for Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. She is also working on Eddie LeVert’s follow-up book, a teen fiction series inspired by her niece and another novel entitled The House of Estrogen, which follows several generations of black woman living under one roof.
“The floodgates have been opened,” LeFlore said about her writing career.
But regardless of her successes, she credits her St. Louis roots as the source of her strength and level head.
“Coming back home over the years since I officially left here in 1991 has always been that thing that kept me grounded,” LeFlore said.
“It didn’t matter who I knew, what I had done or where I had gone. When I came home, I was Shirley and Floyd’s baby.”
