Kwame Alexander is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of 45 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night, The Mighty Macy, Black Star, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book, J vs. K, an illustrated novel he penned with Jerry Craft, the motivational primer for graduates, creatives and professionals entitled Say Yes and The Crossover, his Newbery Medal-winning novel turned Emmy® Award-winning Disney+ TV series. He is also the co-creator and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band and Acoustic Rooster: Jazzy Jams, a PBS KIDS special and series of shorts produced by GBH Kids based on his beloved children's book of the same name. He regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world, including Ghana, West Africa, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic. A recipient of the 2025 NAACP Image Award, Kwame is a 2026 Sine 250+ Fellow at American University and the founder of the literacy non-profit One Word at a Time.

Kwame Alexander has written 45 books, one of them in Panera Bread, several of them on airplanes and in hotel rooms, and three of them in a penthouse with huge windows in London. He lived in an apartment building that used to be a hotel which used to have a restaurant that Langston Hughes (Kwame's favorite poet) was a busboy in. His new house has a blue couch, a large painting of Nikki Giovanni, and a bunch of awards—including his Newbery Medal, NAACP Image Award, Emmy Award, which he keeps in the guest bathroom so all his guests can see them up close. When he’s not writing books like The Crossover, The Mighty Macy, and Black Star, Kwame’s likes to walk around Washington, DC listening to podcasts and audio books, and go shopping (at Sephora) with his six-foot tall daughter, who is about to go to college. Kwame has eaten snails, chocolate covered bugs, and grasscutter, which is like a big rat, which he had no idea he was eating because it was in a really tasty stew he ate in Ghana while building a library and a health clinic in a village called Konko. He’s never eaten frogs. But, he has written a book about them called Surf’s Up. The first children’s book Kwame ever wrote was about a Rooster that starts a jazz band, and guess what...He turned it into an Emmy-nominated cartoon and a game on PBS Kids. It’s called Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band. Kwame loves jazz. Kwame loves his family. Kwame loves his job. Kwame’s most recent job is as founder of a new non-profit whose mission is to make reading cool and fun and it's name is One Word at a Time.