Author and former chief creative officer Valerie Graves spent decades creating award-winning ad campaigns, from using hip-hop artist Ludacris to sell Pontiac cars to featuring Steve Harvey in Burger King spots and helping to re-introduce the Buick brand.

In her first book, Pressure Makes Diamonds: Becoming The Woman I Pretended To Be, Graves paints the picture of a determined woman who faked it till she made it—and made it big–as an authentic Black female creative. She’ll share stories of her journey as a teenage mother who fought her way out of the projects of Pontiac, Michigan into advertising in Detroit during the 1970s, then rose to national prominence in New York as one of the Advertising Age 100 Best and Brightest.