Christina Orlando
TOCHI ONYEBUCHI is the author of Riot Baby, which won the New England Book Award for Fiction; Beasts Made of Night; Crown of Thunder; and War Girls, a Locus Award finalist. He holds degrees from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and Sciences Po. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Omenana Magazine, Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America, and elsewhere. His nonfiction has appeared on Tor.com and in the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places. His most recent novel is Rebel Sisters.
Afaq
JULIAN RANDALL is a Queer Black poet from Chicago. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Callaloo, BOAAT, Tin House, Milkweed Editions, and the Watering Hole. Julian is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. Julian is also the winner of the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle and of the Frederick Bock Prize. His poetry has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and POETRY and anthologized in The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4, Nepantla, and Furious Flower. He has essays in Vibe, Black Nerd Problems, and other venues. He holds an MFA in poetry from Ole Miss. He is the author of Refuse, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award, and of the middle-grade novel Pilar Ramirez and the Prison of Zafa. He talks a lot about poems and other things on Twitter at @JulianThePoet.
Dayo Kosoko
JASON REYNOLDS is an award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author. Jason’s many books include Miles Morales: Spider-Man; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor; and Look Both Ways, which was a National Book Award Finalist. His latest book, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, is a collaboration with Ibram X. Kendi. Jason is the 2020–2021 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and has appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and CBS This Morning. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program, and lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.
Tiffany D. Jackson
JUSTIN A. REYNOLDS has always wanted to be a writer. Opposite of Always, his debut YA novel, was an Indies Introduce Top Ten Debut and a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, was translated into nineteen languages, and is being developed for film by Paramount Players. His second YA novel, Early Departures, was a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of the Year. justin is also the cofounder of the CLE Reads Book Festival, a Cleveland Book Festival for middle-grade and young adult writers, which he launched in July 2019. He hangs out in northeast Ohio with his family and is probably somewhere, right now, dancing terribly. That, or maybe sportsing.
DAVAUN SANDERS resides in Phoenix. His short fiction has been published by FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, PodCastle, Broken Eye Books, Dancing Star Press, and others. He currently serves as executive editor for the World Fantasy Award–winning and two-time Hugo Award–nominated FIYAH. His most recent editorial project is Breathe FIYAH, a flash fiction anthology collaboration with Tor.com. He hopes to continue expanding his body of work in children’s fiction, for his own twins and for kids everywhere who deserve to enjoy inclusive stories. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @davaunsanders.
Vanessa North
JULIAN WINTERS is the award-winning author of Running With Lions, which won an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award, as well as How to Be Remy Cameron and The Summer of Everything. A self-proclaimed comic book geek, Julian lives in Decatur, Georgia, where he can be found watching the only two sports he can follow: volleyball and soccer. Visit him online at julianwinters.com.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
Black Boy Joy Page 20