Skip to Main Content
Andrea Nicole Livingstone, known as Nic Stone, is an American author of young adult fiction and middle grade fiction, best known for her debut novel Dear Martin (“Nic Stone"). Her writings examine how sharing our stories can start dismantling oppression, the effects of systemic racism, and implicit bias. Stone is also a passionate speaker, calling racial issues and lack of representation of people of color into question (Stone).
Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. He is the author of three New York Times bestselling books, Dreams from My Father, The Audacity of Hope, and A Promised Land, and is the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize (“Barack Obama.“). Always a scholar, after he graduated from college he moved to Chicago to assist in rebuilding the community following large closures of factories. His next adventure was law school, where he became the first African—American president of the Harvard Law Review. After law school he returned to Chicago to teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago (“Barack Obama: Penguin Random House").
Jemisin has been called “The most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation.” by the New York Times. N. K. Jemisin, also known as Nora K. Jemisin, became the only writer to win three Best Novel Hugo Awards in consecutive years. As a youth she lived with her mother in Alabama but spent her summers in New York with her father (“Jemisin…”). She started writing at the age eight, and never stopped. In 1997 she received a master’s degree in education from the University of Maryland at College Park. In 2020 Jemisin was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship grant (“N.K. Jemisin”). Her notable works include: The Killing Moon (2012), The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdoms (2010). The Kingdom of Gods (2011), The Shadowed Sun (2012), The Fifth Season (2015), The Obelisk Gate (2016), The Stone Sky (2017), and The City We Became (2020).
Whitehead is famous for both The Underground Railroad (2016) and The Nickel Boys (2019). In 1991 he graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in English and comparative literature (Dickersons). Whitehead has also written nonfiction, notably The Colossus of New York (2003), a collection of essays about New York City, and The Noble Hustle (2014), about the 2011 World Series of Poker. Among his other honors, Whitehead was the recipient of a MacArthur fellowship in 2002 and a Guggenheim fellowship in 2013 (Britannica).
