Once (poetry) 1968
The Third Life of Grange Copeland (novel) 1970
Five Poems (poetry) 1972
In Love and Trouble (short stories) 1973
Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (poetry) 1973
Langston Hughes, American Poet (biography for children) 1974
Meridian (novel) 1976
Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning (poetry) 1979
I Love Myself When I Am Laughing … and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader [editor] (fiction) 1979
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down (short stories) 1981
The Color Purple (novel) 1982
In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose (essays) 1983
Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (poetry) 1984
Living by the Word: Selected Writings 1973–1987 (essays) 1988
To Hell with Dying (juvenile) 1988
The Temple of My Familiar (novel) 1989
Finding the Green Stone [with Catherine Deeter] (juvenile) 1991
Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965–1990 (poetry) 1991
Possessing the Secret of Joy (novel) 1992
Warrior Marks [with Pratibha Parmar] (nonfiction) 1994
The Same River Twice (essays) 1996