About Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni (1943–2024), poet, activist, mother, grandmother, and educator, grew up in Tennessee and Ohio and graduated with honors from Fisk University in Nashville. The author of over thirty books, she was also the recipient of seven NAACP Image Awards, the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry, the Frost Medal, as well as thirty-one honorary degrees and an Emmy Award. She garnered her most unusual honor in 2007 when a South American bat species—Micronycteris giovanniae—was named in celebration of her. A devoted teacher and honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., she spent thirty-five years as University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
About Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received numerous prizes, including the Whiting Award. the American Book Award (for his first book, Please) and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (for his second book, The New Testament). His third work, the collection The Tradition, won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Brown’s poems have appeared in the Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, the New Republic, the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Time magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry annual anthology. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
About Tabitha Brown
Tabitha Brown is an Emmy Award–winning host, actress, and vegan food star who is affectionately known as “America’s Mom.” She has provided millions with food for the body and soul with her everyday wisdom rooted in love, kindness, and compassion. She is also the author of Seen, Loved, and Heard: A Guided Journal for Feeding the Soul, Cooking from the Spirit, and Feeding the Soul (Because It’s My Business), a #1 New York Times bestseller. Tabitha is the cocreator and host of her own children’s show, Tab Time, as well as the recipient of several NAACP Image Awards. She is also the cofounder and CEO of her own hair care line, Donna’s Recipe, and has product lines with Target and McCormick spices. Born and raised in Eden, North Carolina, she lives in Los Angeles with her family and dog.
About Rio Cortez
Rio Cortez is the New York Times bestselling author of picture books The ABCs of Black History illustrated by Lauren Semmer (Workman, 2020); The River Is My Sea, illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin (S&S, 2024); The Blue Velvet Chair, illustrated by Aaron Marin (S&S, 2025); and The ABCs of Women’s History, illustrated by Lauren Semmer (Workman, 2025). Her debut poetry collection, Golden Ax, was published to critical acclaim by Penguin, and praised by Roxane Gay, Ross Gay, Tope Folarin in Vulture, Ron Charles in The Washington Post, Brenda Shaughnessy, Morgan Parker, NPR, and more. The poetry collection was also longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Poetry and the Pen America Open Book Award. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, she now lives, writes, and works in Harlem.
About Nancy Johnson
A native of Chicago’s South Side, Nancy Johnson worked for more than a decade as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates nationwide. A graduate of Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she lives in downtown Chicago and manages brand communications for a large nonprofit. Her first book, The Kindest Lie, was a Book of the Month Club selection and a Target Book Club pick.
About Nicole Sealey
Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida, Nicole Sealey is the author of The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her other honors include an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, a Daniel Varoujan Award and the Poetry International Prize, as well as fellowships from CantoMundo, Cave Canem, MacDowell Colony and the Poetry Project. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere. Nicole holds an MLA in Africana Studies from the University of South Florida and an MFA in creative writing from New York University. She is the Executive Director at Cave Canem Foundation.
About Renée Watson
Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Her young adult novel Piecing Me Together received a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award. Her children’s picture books and novels for teens have received several awards and international recognition. Her picture books include A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills, Summer Is Here, and The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, written with Nikole Hannah-Jones. Renée grew up in Oregon and splits her time between Portland and Harlem.
About Kevin Young
Kevin Young's first book, Most Way Home, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Lucille Clifton and won the Zacharis First Book Prize from Ploughshares. His subsequent poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, Grand Street, Kenyon Review, Callaloo, and Code; his work has also been featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and in The Beacon Best of 1999. A former Stegner fellow in poetry at Stanford University, Young is currently an assistant professor of English and African American studies at the University of Georgia in Athens.
