Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Author Bio: Coe Booth

Coe Booth was born and raised in the Bronx of New York City. She is the author of Tyrell, Kendra, Bronxwood, and Kinda like Brothers. She currently lives in the Bronx, working as a full-time writer and a part-time writing teacher at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Booth also volunteers for the NAACP ACT-SO program where she mentors teen writers.

Author Bio: Tracey Baptiste

Tracey Baptiste was born in Trinidad, where she grew up on jumbie stories and fairy tales, and decided to be a writer at the wise old age of three. Her debut, a young-adult novel titled Angel’s Grace, was named one of the 100 best books for reading and sharing by New York City librarians. She is a former teacher, textbook editor, ballerina, and amateur librarian who once started up a library in her house. She writes and edits books for kids.

Author Bio: Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including When I Was the Greatest, for which he was the recipient of the Coretta Scott King / John Steptoe Award for New Talent; the Coretta Scott King Honor books The Boy in the Black Suit and All American Boys, cowritten with Brendan Kiely; As Brave As You, his middle-grade debut; and National Book Award finalist Ghost, the first in a four-book series about kids on an elite track team.

Author Bio: Rita Williams-Garcia

Rita Williams-Garcia is the author of the Newbery Honor–winning novel One Crazy Summer, which was also a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, a National Book Award finalist, and winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. She is also the author of six distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here; Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book); Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); Blue Tights; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the Writing for Children & Young Adults Program.

Author Bio: Brandy Colbert

Brandy Colbert is the critically acclaimed author of several novels, whose Pointe won the 2014 Cybils Award for young adult fiction and was named a best book of 2014 by Publishers Weekly, BookRiot, and more. Her Little & Lion was a Junior Library Guild and a Book of the Month Club selection. She was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start author for spring 2014. She was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, and earned a bachelors degree in journalism from Missouri State University. She works as a copy editor for magazines and books.

Author Bio: Tochi Onyebuchi

Tochi Onyebuchi is a writer based in Connecticut. He holds a MFA in Screenwriting from Tisch and a JD from Columbia Law School. His writing has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and Ideomancer, among other places.

Author Bio: Coleen Booth

Author Bio: Leah Henderson

Author Bio: Jay Coles

Author Bio: Renée Watson

Renée Watson is the author of This Side of Home, which was nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Her picture book Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills received several honors including an NAACP Image Award nomination in children’s literature. She is also the founder of the I, Too Arts Collective and currently teaches courses on writing for children at University of New Haven and Pine Manor College.