Ibram X. Kendi is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is the author of five books, including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Keisha N. Blain is an award-winning historian, professor, and writer. She is currently an associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, the president of the African American Intellectual History Society, and an editor for The Washington Post's "Made by History" section.
Kendi and Blain edited the upcoming Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, to be published by One World in February 2021.
Sponsored by Penguin Random House
Joy Harjo is an internationally-renowned musician, playwright, and author. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. In June 2019, Harjo was appointed as the 23rd Poet Laureate in Poetry to the Library of Congress and is the first Native American to hold the honor and was reappointed to a second term in April 2020.
She is the author of nine books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise; Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and named a Notable Book by the American Library Association. She has published several screenplays and collections of prose interviews; three plays, and two award-winning children’s books.
Sponsored by W.W. Norton & Company
ALA President, Julius C. Jefferson, Jr. will sit down with Dr. Jill Biden to discuss her work as a community college instructor and literacy advocate.
A lifelong educator, she served as Second Lady of the United States from 2009–2017. She will return to the White House alongside her husband President-elect Joe Biden to serve as First Lady of the United States on January 20, 2021.
Over a long career, Dr. Biden has spent more than three decades teaching in community colleges, high schools, and a psychiatric hospital for adolescents. She has two master’s degrees — both of which she earned while working and raising a family — and earned her doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in January of 2007. Her dissertation focused on maximizing student retention in community colleges.
Dr. Biden is the author of several books, including Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, which was released in May of 2019, as well as a children’s book, JOEY: The Story of Joe Biden, published by Simon & Schuster and released June 2020.