Speaker Spotlight

Vivian Gibson

Vivian is the bestselling author of The Last Children of Mill Creek, a memoir chronicling her childhood in the once-thriving, segregated Mill Creek Valley neighborhood of St. Louis, which was demolished in 1959 under the guise of urban renewal. She began writing about her early years after retiring at 66, capturing the resilience, warmth, and tight-knit community that shaped her upbringing. Her work has been featured in The St. Louis Anthology and Poets & Writers Magazine, and she was named the 2022 Missouri Author of the Year by the Missouri Library Association. A graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology and Fontbonne University, she later earned a Master’s in Nonprofit Management from Washington University in St. Louis at age 63. Gibson currently lives near the historic Mill Creek Valley area and continues to share stories that preserve its legacy.