Our Leadership

Kwame Alexander

CO-FOUNDER/DIRECTOR EMERITUS

Kwame Alexander is the recipient of the 2015 Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American Literature for Children, a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee and author of 15 books, including Acoustic Rooster, a picture book optioned for a TV show, and the forthcoming YA novel He Said/She Said, a Junior Library Guild Selection. He’s also a poet, publisher, literary editor, playwright, producer, speaker, performer, teacher, and book festival founder. He’s the poet-laureate of LitWorld, and, through his Book-in-a-Day literacy program, he has created more than 3,000 student authors of 55 anthologies of poetry and fiction. Publisher’s Weekly considers Alexander a pivotal figure in contemporary American literature and publishing. Nikki Giovanni calls him her “literary son.” Alexander served on the advisory board for Giovanni’s The 100 Best African American Poems. A regular speaker and workshop presenter at conferences in the U.S., he also travels the world planting seeds of literary love (Brazil, Italy, France, Turkey, Canada, and Ghana are recent stops).