Diane grew up in Philadelphia, the city she returns to as the setting for Leaving Cecil Street. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Magazine; Essence; the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine; and the anthologies Bluelight Corner, and Mending the World.

She has received numerous awards, including the 2005 BCALA Literary Award for Fiction, a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, the Zora Neale Hurston Society award for creative contribution to literature, a citation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for her portrayal of urban life as presented in Tumbling, Author of the Year award from the Go On Girl Book Club, and more.

She presently teaches fiction writing at her alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband Greg, and sometimes her college-age twins, Taiwo, her daughter, and Kehinde, her son.