Gary Ann Giovanni was born in September 1940 in Knoxville, Tennessee and attended Central State University in Ohio. She married young, divorced, and then married Joe Black, the first African American to pitch in a World Series and had one son with him. In 1973, Giovanni graduated from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Giovanni volunteered with Fannie Lou Hamer in delivering Christmas turkeys in Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement. She attended the California Culinary Academy, studying with master pastry chef Bo Freiburg, as well as with pastry chef Jim Dodge at the Stanford Court Hotel, chef Herbert Keller of Fleur de Lys, and many others. For five years, Giovanni owned and ran a full-service catering business in Oakland, California. Giovanni worked for SeaLand Corporation in Oakland, California until 1994 when she retired and moved with her mother to Blacksburg, Virginia, where her sister, poet Nikki Giovanni, lives. While in Blacksburg, Giovanni opened a catering business with Rebecca Isenhour which they named B.I.G.G., the acronym representing both of their initials. At the same time, Giovanni taught numerous well-received classes through the YMCA's Open University program. She studied at several of the Greenbrier's cooking workshops. In 2005, Giovanni was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She died that August in Blacksburg, Virginia.