Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson is an acclaimed American novelist, poet, and children’s book author. She is a prolific chronicler of the African American experience and her work has earned her an abundance of awards, including the National Book Award. Her penchant for exploring both the difficult and wonderful in life has made her a captivating storyteller and earned her multiple prestigious accolades.

Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1963. Her family moved often, and she spent her early childhood between Ohio, New Jersey, and South Carolina. When she was just seven years old, her family relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where she attended the Bay Ridge elementary school and Medgar Evers College Prep School. She went on to attend college in Atlanta, Georgia, where she studied at the historically Black college Spelman. She quickly pursued writing as a means of expression and her first book, After Tupac and D Foster, was published in 1997.

Woodson’s work in writing has focused on the African American experience, with both recent and historical events informing her stories. She uses her characters to illustrate themes of identity, race, religion, class, and family in a manner that is both engaging and insightful. Her characters often deal with challenging issues such as bullying, racism, and death, but Woodson’s emphasis for her writing 'is to find hope even in the hardest of times'.

Her first novel, If You Come Softly, is a love story between two high schoolers from different cultures. The book was groundbreaking in its exploration of interracial relationships and was awarded a host of accolades, including being named a Coretta Scott King Honor Award Winner. Her next novel, Locomotion, was titled a National Book Award finalist and its follow up After Tupac And D Foster won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2008. Woodson is highly successful when writing for children and in 2018 she won the prestigious Newbery Medal for her memoir in verse, located in the Caribbean called Harbor Me.

Woodson’s work has been met with critical acclaim and she has won numerous awards and honors, including being named a Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2015. Woodson’s work speaks to the power of storytelling and the insight it grants us into others’ lives and experiences. She has used her voice to bring young people center-stage and her stories will bring generations of readers an understanding of both contemporary and historical life.