Lorene Cary is the author of FREE!, a collection of true-life Underground Railroad Stories for young readers, published in 2006; The Price of A Child, a 1995 novel chosen as a One Book, One Philadelphia selection by the city's mayor; Pride, a contemporary novel, and the best-selling memoir Black Ice, an American Library Association Notable Book for 1991 often taught in colleges and high school. Cary has also written and edited for magazines, including TIME, Newsweek, O Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Essence and Mirabella. She is currently at work on a fifth book, Blackface.

A Senior Lecturer in creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, Cary was given the Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1998. IN the same year she founded Art Sanctuary, a unique non-profit performance series that brings black artists to speak and perform at the Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia. With its partner Asian Arts Initiative, Art Sanctuary has won Pennsylvania's 2005 Governor's Award in the Arts for Creative Community collaboration. For her writing and arts activism, Cary was awarded her city's highest civic honor, The Philadelphia Award, and she has received honorary doctorates from Keene State College, Colby College, Chestnut Hill College, Muhlenberg College, and Arcadia University.

Cary is president of the Union Benevolent Association. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, the Rev. Robert C. Smith, and daughters Laura and Zoë.