Kwame Alexander

KWAME ALEXANDER is a poet, educator, Emmy-winning producer and #1 New York Times bestselling author of 41 books, including the upcoming release Black Star, the second installment of his Door of No Return trilogy, This Is The Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, Why Fathers Cry at Night, An American Story, The Door of No Return, Becoming Muhammad Ali (co-authored with James Patterson), Rebound, which was shortlisted for the prestigious UK Carnegie Medal, and The Undefeated, the National Book Award nominee, Newbery Honor, and Caldecott Medal-winning picture book illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

Kwame is the recipient of numerous awards, including The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, The Coretta Scott King Author Honor, four NAACP Image Award Nominations, and the 2017 Inaugural Pat Conroy Legacy Award. In 2018, he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana, as a part of LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy program he co-founded. In January 2023, a Kennedy Center-commissioned national tour for young audiences began for Alexander’s musical Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie: Starring Indigo Blume, which is based on two of his beloved children’s books, Acoustic Rooster and Indigo Blume.

Kwame is also the Emmy-winning Executive Producer, Writer and Showrunner, and The Crossover TV series, based on his Newbery-Medal winning novel of the same name, which premiered on Disney+in April 2023. The Crossover was produced in partnership with LeBron James' Spring Hill Company and Big Sea Entertainment, Kwame's production company where he serves as CEO and Co-founder, dedicated to creating innovative, highly original children’s and family entertainment. Other current projects in development at Big Sea include America’s Next Great Author, the groundbreaking reality television series for writers, and an animated series based off of the book The World of ¡Vamos! by Raúl the Third, in partnership with Sony Pictures Television–Kids (formerly known as Silvergate Media).

A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, Kwame is the creator and host of the Why Fathers Cry podcast, premiering September 2023, featuring conversations about love and parenting and loss, with fathers and sons.

Additionally, Kwame regularly serves as a keynote and guest speaker at hundreds of thousands of schools, libraries, organizations and conferences around the world. He has shared his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing at events like the Chautauqua Lecture Series, the Edinburgh Book Festival, Aspen Ideas, Asheville Ideas Fest, and the Global Literacy Symposium in Ghana, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana. Most recently he was appointed the Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts and Writer-in-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution.

His mission is to change the world, one word at a time