A’Lelia Bundles is the award-winning author of four books of nonfiction, including Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance (Scribner, June 2025), the first major biography of her great-grandmother, and On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, a New York Times Notable Book and bestseller about her great-great-grandmother, an early 20th-century hair care industry entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Bundles is also the founder of the Madam Walker Family Archives, the largest private collection of Walker photographs, memorabilia, and ephemera. She worked in network television news for thirty years, first at NBC News, where she was a producer for news and magazine programs, and then at ABC News, where she was a World News Tonight producer, Washington, D.C., deputy bureau chief, and director of talent development.

Bundles grew up in Indianapolis and attended North Central High School.