Aliya S. King was born and raised in East Orange, New Jersey. She is a 1994 graduate of Rutgers University with a B.A. in Africana Studies and certification in Secondary Education from the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
After teaching United States History and African-American History at Clifford Scott High School for several years, Ms. King traded in her chalkboard for a laptop after spending a summer vacation at The Radcliffe Publishing Course, sponsored by Harvard University.
Since then, she has held editorial positions at Billboard and The Source. As a freelance writer, her profiles, news stories and features have appeared in Nylon, Vibe, CMJ:New Music Monthly, Upscale, King, The Source, Ms, Us Weekly, Teen People, Uptown, America, Essence, Black Enterprise and others.
Aliya’s commitment to education inspired her to create the “Write On!” program. Through this program Aliya has introduced journalism and publishing to hundreds of students in East Orange, New Jersey in grades 3-8. The students learn the step-by-step process of publishing and create their own magazine.
Aliya’s career in publishing has taken her on many journeys and introduced her to some of pop culture’s most interesting personalities. She’s traveled to Paris with Brian McKnight for a story on his world tour and reported on the rap scene in Israel and Germany. She’s gone from talking to Mariah Carey about her issues with being biracial to hashing out environmental issues with former Vice President Al Gore.
Aliya’s story, “Love And Unhappiness,” (published in Vibe), about the mysterious 1974 death that took place in the home of soul singer Al Green was recently announced as a winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for magazine writing for 2005.
Aliya is currently writing her first book. The book is a collaboration with platinum recording artist Faith Evans titled Keep The Faith: The true story of an R&B diva and her quest to survive love, loss and music industry madness. The book will be published in June, 2008 by Warner Books.