Kwame Alexander, Author of "The Crossover" Series
[0:10]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and this is Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:15]As a mom of four kids in New York City and a writer myself, I know all too well how short
[0:19]everyone is on time, so I'm here to help.
[0:21]I'm going to interview authors and writers of all types about their work, especially
[0:25]as it relates to parenting and family issues.
[0:28]Hopefully you can listen while doing 8 million other things, and fall in love with these
[0:31]talented scribes and their fantastic books, essays, and songs like I have.
[0:35]Plus get some tips on surviving parenthood.
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[0:42]Today's episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books is sponsored by Bobo Botanicals.
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[1:06]Today I have the privilege of interviewing Kwame Alexander.
[1:10]Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and the New York Times best-selling author of 25
[1:16]books, including Rebound, The Crossover, which won the prestigious Newberry Award in 2015
[1:22]and Booked.
[1:23]He has won many other literary accolades as well, including the Coretta Scott King
[1:27]Author Honor, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Prize, three NAACP Image Award nominations,
[1:34]the NCTE Charlotte Hook Honor, and the 2017 inaugural Pat Conroy Legacy Award.
[1:40]In addition to writing, Kwame has given back to communities around the world, including
[1:44]in Ghana, where his literacy program, LEAP, Capital LEAP, for Ghana, trains teachers and
[1:50]has helped build libraries and health clinics.
[1:52]Kwame is the host and producer of the literary variety talk show Bookish, which airs
[1:57]on Facebook Watch, and is the founding editor of Vercify, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin
[2:02]in a hard-court books for young readers.
[2:04]He frequently visits schools and libraries, where he inspires kids with his book in a day
[2:08]writing.
[2:09]He currently lives in Virginia with his wife and two daughters.
[2:11]Hi, Kwame.
[2:12]It's Evie Owens.
[2:13]How are you?
[2:15]Good.
[2:16]How are you?
[2:17]Great.
[2:18]Thanks so much for doing this interview.
[2:20]I really appreciate it.
[2:22]No, thank you for all of your support and excited about it.
[2:30]I have to say I just finished reading The Cross Over Rebound and Books, and I'm completely
[2:36]in awe of you.
[2:37]I feel like you're a literary genius.
[2:39]That's serious.
[2:41]That's serious.
[2:42]I'm serious.
[2:43]My son actually read your books first, and he couldn't put them down one after another
[2:46]after another, and he was like, Mom, you should check these out for your show.
[2:50]So a week later, I was crying in bed, having read all of them, and anyway, your storytelling
[2:56]is just unique and moving and amazing.
[3:00]That's cool.
[3:01]You're welcome.
[3:02]Can you hear me okay?
[3:03]Yes.
[3:04]I can hear you.
[3:05]Great.
[3:06]Thank you.
[3:07]Wonderful.
[3:08]So let's start at the beginning.
[3:09]I know you grew up in Brooklyn and then Virginia with a college professor, father, and
[3:13]school principal mother, surrounded by words.
[3:16]Can you tell me how you started writing, especially writing poetry, and how that led you
[3:20]to be this ultimate innovator and children's publishing?
[3:24]I wrote as sort of a necessity at an early age.
[3:31]It was for Mother's Day, and I was well read, book reports, and things of that nature,
[3:48]and probably a few poems at home because my parents, you know, believed school didn't end
[3:53]when the school day ended.
[3:56]I decided to write a poem for my mother and Mother's Day because I knew how to do it.
[4:00]The response I got in the room was just overwhelmed and she just loved it and she cried.
[4:06]I thought, wow.
[4:07]She just worked for really that powerful.
[4:11]So that just was sort of the beginning for me.
[4:14]I didn't know what to take it seriously, and so the high school, like senior year and
[4:21]the beginning of college, when again, it became sort of a necessity, democratic election.
[4:43]Like I was really into it and I remember Jesse Jackson running the president and so
[4:48]I wrote a series of newspaper columns in support of his presidency at my high school
[4:56]and just the uproar of people who were like saying I was saying, including my friends,
[5:06]I couldn't believe I would write article in support of Jesse Jackson.
[5:11]I was, wow.
[5:12]Words are really powerful.
[5:13]It's people, really.
[5:15]And then in college, you know, Virginia Tech was pretty invested in Africa.
[5:27]And so I was a self-proclaimed actor to divest from those companies and I used poetry
[5:41]to sort of get my point across.
[5:44]And we had rallies and people really, you know, resonated with a lot of students, started
[5:54]finding them pretty interesting.
[5:56]And so then I started writing a lot of poems and it was on from there and I was like,
[6:03]yes, poetry is powerful.
[6:07]Words are powerful.
[6:08]They're going to change not only the world, but they're going to change my life.
[6:11]And I took Nicky G. of Arney's class at Virginia Tech and it was on and popping from
[6:16]their own.
[6:17]And isn't it true that you wrote a poem to your wife when you were dating her one
[6:22]a day for a year?
[6:23]And that's how you were courting her?
[6:25]Yeah, I wrote her a poem or quote, a paragraph.
[6:33]I wrote her something every day for a year and sometimes there were more poetic than
[6:40]other times.
[6:42]And I need to go and get those crates and read some of that stuff.
[6:47]There was even a time during that year where she was upset with me about something and
[6:54]so like for a month and a half, everything I wrote was trying to sort of make up and
[7:00]apologize.
[7:01]And so man, but yeah, I really got in touch again with the power of words because she ended
[7:09]up marrying me.
[7:10]So hey, it works.
[7:11]I'm thinking that's your next book.
[7:12]I don't know.
[7:13]Oh my gosh.
[7:16]Interesting.
[7:17]All right.
[7:18]I get a percentage of this.
[7:20]I've been talking about or thinking about writing a book for adults, like writing an adult
[7:29]novel and in so many ideas who have come to mind, but certainly that's the best one
[7:36]that could work.
[7:38]I have to say in rebound in the crossover, I know they're not intended for adults.
[7:42]But I found them to be, you know, on par if not better than a lot of books that I read
[7:48]just for me.
[7:49]I mean, the way you talked about loss and the death of a parent or divorce, these are issues
[7:56]obviously that grownups are wrestling with too, especially in how to talk to their kids
[8:00]about it.
[8:01]And I feel like you do such a good job of telling it from the kid's point of view.
[8:07]You say like in rebound, I wish I could stretch my arms like read Richards all the way
[8:13]to heaven and hug my father one more time, just one more time.
[8:17]And then it was so beautiful and booked.
[8:18]You wrote in the way a door closes, you wrote from your window, you watch with love and
[8:23]happiness, sink like twins and quick sand when she drives away, leaving you suffocating
[8:28]and sleeplessness out of breath and hope, exhausted, trapped, falling.
[8:32]And then in the crossover, I'm sorry to butcher you writing with my horrible voice here,
[8:37]but I'm sure it's more melodic if you read it, but there are no coaches at funerals,
[8:42]no practice to get ready, no warm up.
[8:44]There is no less second shot, and we all wear its cruel midnight uniform starless and
[8:48]unfriendly.
[8:49]I am unprepared for death, this is a game I cannot play, it has no rules, no referees,
[8:54]you cannot win.
[8:55]I mean, I literally get goosebumps every time I read this, tell me about how do you
[9:03]think you've managed to talk so beautifully across both adults and kids and what is the
[9:09]effect been like on you?
[9:10]I mean, do people come up and thank you all the time, just tell me about a little more.
[9:16]Well, now that I hear you read it, wow, I mean, it is confirmed, I am a genius.
[9:22]Right?
[9:23]What's that?
[9:24]Tell us our beautiful words, all I can say to me is, once you get into the rhythm of writing
[9:33]and the crossover was five years, both with sort of two and a half years, rebound with
[9:38]two years, once you get into the rhythm, it's sort of like a dream state, like I don't
[9:45]even remember writing those words.
[9:48]And so all I can figure in, I sat in Panera Bridge so long in the same chair that eventually
[9:56]like I just click and I think that's what happened with the writing.
[10:00]the longer you get involved and invested in characters in the story,
[10:05]the more the story begins to write itself and you become sort of the vessel and are you open
[10:10]to being the vessel and I'm always open to that sort of inspiration and that level of creativity.
[10:18]But wow, I gotta go back and read those books again.
[10:23]I mean, I could just read it to you all day. No, I'm kidding.
[10:26]But yeah, no. I mean, I hear from a lot of young people, a lot of adults,
[10:33]the impact that the books have had on them and I think, yeah, some of it has to deal with
[10:41]sort of me putting in the work, but I think a great part of it is the poetry and I think poetry
[10:48]has that power is so short. It's so few words. It's so much white space. Like when it hits you,
[10:55]it's poetry is meant to get to your heart. Like that's the goal of it. It's not a lot of work
[11:01]because each word counts each word matters and it's meant to sort of, you know, when done right,
[11:07]rip your heart out and stomp on it. And so I think that's one of the advantages to writing and
[11:16]poetry when you know what you're doing. And I guess I've just been doing it long enough that
[11:20]I at least think I know what I'm doing.
[11:23]I think you know what you're doing. If you don't, then I don't know who knows what they're doing.
[11:26]But
[11:27]Oh, thank you. You also, I like how you mix a bunch of different styles in your books.
[11:32]Like sometimes you use more of this hip hop vibe, like in the crossover when you write,
[11:37]oh, to my hair. You wrote, if my hair were a tree, I'd climb it. I'd kneel down beneath
[11:42]and enshrine it. I'd treat it like gold and then mine it. Each day before school, I unwind it. And
[11:46]right before games, I entwind it. These on my head, I designed it. And one last thing, if you don't
[11:51]mind it, the bet you just made, I decline it. So you have that like mixed in with these sort of
[11:57]heartfelt, you know, inner feelings and monologues, you know, all these different styles sort of
[12:03]meshing to make this completely emotional read. Was that intentional? Or do you just sort of,
[12:09]you know, just go where the words take you? Yeah, it's intentional in the sense that
[12:18]you know, the crossover took five years to get published. And that was one of the main concerns,
[12:23]like what are you doing? You're all over the place. And I was like, well, this is how the story
[12:28]needs to be told. And this is how I write. And there is no one way for me to, you know, write
[12:34]verse. And I want kids to be exposed to a variety of verse. And there's beauty in all of it.
[12:42]There's different ways to tell different sides or different facets of the story. Not all,
[12:48]you know, facets can be told well with a writing couplet or a less full of mates or a high
[12:55]cool. They all deserve their own sort of, you know, style. And so, yeah, I mean, I just sort of
[13:02]feel where I am in the story. What type of poem did take that? And I'm not sort of limited or
[13:09]I'm not sort of hemmed up by any notion of what I think or what I think publishers think it should
[13:16]be. And I've never, you know, felt that way. And again, that's why it took so long. And why I got
[13:23]so many rejections because that sort of the conventional wisdom that I have to be learned. And it
[13:28]can't be all. Is it true that 22 publishers rejected the crossover before it went on to win the
[13:33]newberry medal? It is crazy. It is. I know, right? What was that like? Did you ever want to just
[13:40]give up and just, you know, put it on the shelf and say forget it? All the time. Like, I gave up,
[13:48]I gave up a lot. I mean, every time I got a rejection, I was like, I couldn't write the rest of
[13:55]the day. I packed up my bags, sad. But inevitably, like, I knew I was doing something that was pretty
[14:03]good. Like, even though I was being told it wasn't, I knew that it was good and I just had to constantly
[14:10]remind myself for that. And I love the story. Like, I loved it. And I figure if I love it,
[14:17]then it's when it gets published, it's probable that other people are going to love it.
[14:23]Like, at or at least there's a better chance that other people are going to love it. And, you know,
[14:28]especially like adults when we talked about writing for adults, like, I knew that it had to be a story
[14:32]about kids, but it had to be a story for everyone. Right. And is this in part why you started
[14:39]your own imprint called Versify? So you could publish things that maybe other people didn't want to
[14:45]take a chance on? That's what I thought. That was, yeah, yeah. I wanted to find more
[14:52]Kwame's and more books that, quote, crossed over and sort of, you know, build careers of writers
[14:59]who didn't have opportunities. And that was my goal. And it's so funny because it seemed like so many
[15:05]of the books that would have gotten passed on four years ago. It would have gotten rejected.
[15:10]They're all being bought now. Like, everybody's getting it now. You know, well, the crossover sold,
[15:17]you know, a gang of copies and, you know, versus selling so well, then we're all going to do it.
[15:25]So I've created a level of competition for myself.
[15:33]With rebound and the crossover, did you have it all planned out? Just the story, not the way,
[15:40]not the way you told it, but the, you know, the meat of it, the way everything sort of comes
[15:45]together in the end and you explain how everyone's related and, um, you tie in, you know, like
[15:50]filthy and McNasty and even what they say to each other at night and all these amazing things
[15:55]between the two books. Did you have that goal at the outset? Or did you sort of decide to do that
[16:01]when you started the second book? You mean with crossover and rebound? Yeah.
[16:08]Yeah, I knew that I knew that there needed to be connections. I knew that some of the connections
[16:13]already adjusted. I knew that some of them I was going to have to sort of really dig up and
[16:19]said, Oh, wait a minute. I think that's a connection too. Let me explore that. So some of my new
[16:25]in advance and some of my I figured out later as I was writing. So is it true? And this is just a
[16:30]technical question. Is an April in booked skinny's daughter? Yes. Good. Okay. That was really cool.
[16:43]I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. April is skinny's daughter. And, and I think the next book
[16:53]is about April. Nice. Okay. Awesome. Who played? Who? Yeah. I think it's about April. So yeah.
[17:01]Excellent. Um, so I figured after reading these basketball centric works that you would be some sort
[17:07]of former champion basketball player. But then I read that you were actually a tennis start growing up
[17:12]that you were number one on the tennis team and had traveled the country in the mid to late 80s
[17:16]playing tennis tournaments. This is true. This is so true. I loved it. It was my sport. I mean,
[17:24]I love playing basketball, but I loved like being competitive in tennis and playing in
[17:31]tournaments. And probably because I just wasn't great or didn't spend a whole lot of time playing
[17:35]basketball, but tennis and something like five or six years in my life. And the huge tennis fan
[17:43]as well as they're going to be a tennis book, maybe called net or slice or something.
[17:49]Well, I think it's very good to be a tennis book. I think it's good to be called love.
[17:54]Oh, I'm actually trying to, I'm writing a memoir myself right now called 40 love about falling
[18:00]in love again at 40. That's great. I love it. I love it. I can't wait for your book now. That's amazing.
[18:12]That's awesome. So your poem, take a knee, which you originally released on ESPN, which is super
[18:20]interesting in and of itself, is your poetic commentary on our country today. Can you tell me more
[18:26]about the meaning and intention behind taking me and also what you think about the NFL recently
[18:31]requiring football players not to take any? Like the NFL leads to watch the poem apparently.
[18:39]Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I wanted to sort of write about why we protest, why we write, why
[18:53]we take a knee. The alternative, I think, for this country is something that we are prepared for.
[19:05]And there's only so long that you can, you know, that you can take the life of a ground boy
[19:17]before any of people or people who care about the lives of boys of children,
[19:27]stands up and fights that. And of this community, this is a way to protest that. It's a way to do
[19:45]it in the spirit of, you know, Gandhi and Dr. King. It's a way to do it that doesn't really hurt
[19:52]anyone. And so, and it's a way that people can remain sane. Like how do you remain?
[20:00]saying when, when these lives of brown boys are being moved, are being shifted, are being
[20:06]are being blown away like, like sand in a windstorm. Like, how do you remain saying in the midst
[20:13]of that? When you have brown boys as children, or if you teach brown boys, or if you, or whatever,
[20:19]if you're just a human being, who understands the value of life? Like, how do you, how do you remain
[20:26]and just move on with your day? And I think one of the ways you do that is you, you, you raise your
[20:34]voice and you share your voice and you make your voice heard about what's wrong and taking a knee
[20:39]is what does that. I mean, it's something really simple. And you have to allow people, you have to
[20:46]allow human being to space to stand up for what's right. One was about that. If you don't want
[20:56]people taking a knee, you think that's what takes you out of the way until you see the alternative.
[21:02]So that's not good. In your interview on the opposition with Jordan Klepper, you say that poetry
[21:13]is instant access to humanity. Can you explain what you meant by that? Well, you said,
[21:19]as you said after you read all three books, you cried. And you had, you had this emotional connection.
[21:28]Like, that's humanity. When you feel connected to other people, people, you don't even know
[21:36]like people you have no relationship with or, but you just feel connected to them because they
[21:42]are human and you are human and you're your life and their life and your experience and their
[21:48]experience that I've intersected in this moment. That's humanity. And I think from my perspective,
[21:54]that's humanity. And I think books have a way of being able to make those connections for us
[22:04]before we even made them in our lives so that it can be instruction and inspiration for them.
[22:09]And I think poetry is the most immediate way to get there. Like, of all the forms of literature
[22:16]and language, I think poetry can do that quicker, more substantial.
[22:31]So my son Owen has a question for you. He wants to know, how do you have time to write such good
[22:36]books with all the other things you're doing? Oh, and I have no idea. I agree. I don't even stop
[22:45]to think about it because that's right. You can create it. I can do it. That's a great question.
[22:51]I have no idea how I get all this stuff to, but I know that I love it. I love my job.
[22:59]So can you tell me more about what's coming next on Instagram? You said you had just
[23:03]finished a book this weekend? What was that about? It's a book and the cover was just released
[23:10]today. The cover was just revealed today. It's a book about baseball and jazz, music, and social
[23:18]justice. And it's called swing. And it comes out when I talk over the second. And I'm really excited
[23:24]about it. It's a different kind of novel. It's very different. But I feel like it's
[23:29]it's timely. It's a good book. And will you write any more about the Bell family? I kind of want
[23:36]to know what happens with them from here on out. I've never seen no. If I could figure out another
[23:43]story to tell about them, sure. I guess people ask me a lot to write about Roxy. Yeah. I could
[23:50]see that. So maybe there's a Roxy Bell story coming out. Who knows? And have you ever thought
[23:57]about any of your books or turning into film in any way? Yeah. We've been working on crossover
[24:04]TV series for a long time. Oh, great. Yeah. So hopefully that will that will come to pass and
[24:11]certainly I could see solo and swing as movies. It's definitely the thumbnail that I've thought about.
[24:19]So I just signed up for your solo book club for my kids for the summer. Can you tell
[24:24]listeners more about the book club? The solo book club that you're launching for this summer.
[24:32]I guess you're releasing different guides and discussion videos while we all read solo together
[24:39]through the month of June. Oh, yeah. It's a little fun. We thought we'd do online. We'll book club
[24:47]with the author and I'll be doing some reading from the book. And I got some questions and stuff
[24:54]I'll be answering and some commentary and it'll be kind of interactive. It'll be kind of fun.
[25:00]Awesome. And do you have any advice to aspiring writers out there? Kids or grown-ups?
[25:08]I think just read is really good books as you can. You know, I think I was in Mexico just
[25:14]weekend and I was on the beach and I did absolutely nothing but read. And I had plenty or not
[25:19]writing for a while. I needed a break. And I read this one book that I kept in young and caught
[25:24]brown. It's a collection of poems to rock my world. I just love this book of poems. And I love
[25:35]this so much that when I got back home or two, I'm ready to start writing again. And of course,
[25:40]I had already decided I wasn't going to write for a while. But I think a good book, a good book
[25:46]can sort of inspire you to not just want to write, but to want to write really good, to want
[25:53]to write about something that matters. And so write advice will be read, everything you can get to
[25:57]hand doing and enjoy it and be inspired. And can you just tell me a little bit about all of your
[26:04]nonprofit work like your work in Ghana? What was it like to know? So you have something called
[26:10]leap for Ghana, which trains teachers and builds libraries and health clinics. How did you originally
[26:15]pick Ghana? And I know there was something that you had started building a library, but realized
[26:20]without a health clinic, it was a waste, right? They had to get people healthy first. Is that
[26:26]sort of what happened? Yeah, it's all sort of like that. I've been going to Ghana for six years and
[26:33]just wanted to, I mean, want to build a friend of mine is the queen of. And I just wanted to do
[26:38]something in this village that helped match the resources or match their ambition with some
[26:45]resources because they didn't have a whole lot. And so, you know, I decided the best, what I do is
[26:50]I write, I know books, so maybe a library would work. And then that sort of evolved into a library
[26:55]at a health clinic because I realized the library wasn't, you know, their idea was mine and I really
[27:01]needed to ask them what they wanted. Of course, they wanted a health clinic. So then the library
[27:05]evolved into a library at a health clinic. And now it's evolved into a library, hopefully,
[27:10]from the internet cafe. And so it's in people and opening and visualize. And I think it's been six
[27:17]years. It's been part of my life's work. And I'm excited once this is done, you know, I'm excited
[27:26]to see what's next, but I have no idea where am I going to go next? What am I going to do next?
[27:31]But I know I have to be doing something because I want to miss this authentic life that's about
[27:36]trying to change the world. Otherwise, writing to change the world becomes new. Like what am I writing
[27:42]about? Why am I writing? I really want to be actively involved in trying to make the world a better
[27:47]place, trying to be a willing participant in this world. Well, like everything else that you've
[27:54]written and said I find that super inspiring and a great note to end on. So thank you so much for
[28:00]your time. I really appreciate it. And as you can tell, I'm a huge fan. Sorry to be totally, you know,
[28:08]so ridiculously complimentary. But I really do feel that your work is sensational. And thank you for
[28:16]if nothing else for entertaining my son for a couple hours. So I can do something else.
[28:22]That's cool. Well, you're very welcome. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much. I can't wait to read
[28:28]love. All right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Take care. This episode of mom's don't have time to read
[28:34]books. He's been sponsored by Bobbo Botanicals, BABO Bobbo Botanicals dot com. You can find
[28:40]their products also on Amazon. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe and give a five star rating.