Kwame Alexander, THE CROSSOVER, BOOKED, and REBOUND

[1:21]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books. This thirty minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, three hundred and sixty five days a year for about thirty minutes. I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction and memoir. Our books are already out now. You can check it out on zippybooks.com. And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag where we have lots of wonderful essays and lifestyle features. That's at zippymag.com. We have classes at zippyclasses.com. And I recently opened a bookstore in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue at 11th Street in Santa Monica. I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings, but this Here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018, and no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing. Enjoy. This weekend, I'm re releasing an episode with Kwame Alexander. Kwame and I have gotten to know each other a lot since this first episode. He is amazing and has so many creative ideas and TV shows in the works and movie adaptations. And I originally heard about him through my son who was loving his books in school, and that is just the best way to hear about any author. So in honor of his new book, which I haven't interviewed him for, but it's called Why Fathers Cry at Night. And in honor of that, I'm releasing his old episodes. So you can check out his new book and his old books and become a Kwame fan like I am. Today, I have the privilege of interviewing Kwame Alexander. Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and the New York Times bestselling author of 25 books including Rebound, The Crossover which won the prestigious Newbery Award in 2015 and Booked. He has won many other literary accolades as well including the Coretta Scott King author honor, the Lee Bennett Hopkins poetry prize, three NAACP image award nominations, the NCTE Charlotte Hawk honor, and the 2017 inaugural Pat Conroy Legacy Award. In addition to writing Kwame has given back to communities around the world including in Ghana where his literacy program LEAP for Ghana trains teachers and has helped build libraries and health clinics. Kwame is the host and producer of the literary variety talk show Bookish which airs on Facebook Watch and is the founding editor of Versify an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt books for young readers. He frequently visits schools and libraries where he inspires kids with his book in a day writing. He currently lives in Virginia with his wife and two daughters. Hi Kwame, it's Zibby Owens. How are you? Good. How are you? Great. Thanks so much for doing this interview. I really appreciate it.

[4:14]Kwame Alexander: No. Thank you for all of your support, and I'm excite excited about it.

[4:22]Zibby Owens: I have to say I just finished reading The Crossover, Rebound, and Booked, and I'm, like, completely in awe of you. I feel like you're a literary genius. No. I'm serious. I'm serious. My son actually read your books first, and he couldn't put them down one after another after another. And he was like, mom, you should check these out for your show. So a week later, I was, like, crying in bed having read all of them. And, anyway, your storytelling is just unique and moving and amazing.

[4:51]Kwame Alexander: So thank you. Well, that's

[4:53]Zibby Owens: that's cool. You're welcome. So let's start at the beginning. I know you grew up in Brooklyn and then Virginia with a college professor father and school principal mother surrounded by words. Can you tell me how you started writing, especially writing poetry, and how that led you to be this ultimate innovator in children's publishing? I

[5:12]Kwame Alexander: wrote poetry as sort of a necessity at an early age. It was for Mother's Day. And I was well read, had written a lot of book reports and essays and and things of that nature and probably a few poems at home because my parents, you know, believed school didn't end when the school day ended. So I decided to write a poem for my mother on Mother's Day because I knew how to do it. And the response I got from her was just overwhelming. Like she just loved it. She cried and I was like, wow. Words were really that that powerful? And so that just was sort of the beginning for me. I didn't really take it seriously until the end of high school, like senior year and the beginning of college when again it became sort of a necessity. I was sort of involved in at that point the nineteen eighty eight or eighty four democratic election, like I was really into it, because I remember Jesse Jackson running for president. And so I wrote a series of newspaper columns in support of the presidency at my high school, and just the uproar of people who were like totally against everything I was saying, including my friends. They couldn't believe I would write articles in support of Jesse Jackson. I was like, Wow, words are really powerful. People are really And then in college, Virginia Tech was pretty invested in companies that did business in South Africa and so I was a self proclaimed activist urging our university to divest from those companies and I used poetry to sort of get my point across. And we had rallies and people really, you know, it resonated with a lot of students. And I found that girls started finding me pretty interesting. And so then I started writing love for them, and it was on from there, Jimmy. I was like, yes. Poetry is powerful. Words are powerful. They're gonna change not only the world, but they're gonna change my life. And and I took Nikki Giovanni's class at Virginia Tech, and it was it was on and popping from then on.

[8:05]Zibby Owens: And isn't it true that you wrote a poem to your to your wife when you were dating her one a day for a year, and that's how you were recording her?

[8:14]Kwame Alexander: Yeah. I wrote her a poem or a quote or a or a paragraph. I wrote her something every day for a year, and and sometimes they were they were more poetic than other times. And I I I need to go and get those crates and read some of that stuff. Because there was there was even a time during that year where she was upset with me about something, and and so, like, for a month and a half, everything I wrote was trying to sort of make up and apologize. And so, man but, yeah, I I really got in touch again with the power of words because she ended up marrying me. So, hey, it works. I'm thinking that's your next book. I don't know. Oh my gosh. Interesting.

[9:05]Zibby Owens: Alright. I I get a percentage of this.

[9:10]Kwame Alexander: You know, I've been trying to I've been talking about or thinking about writing a book for adults, like writing an adult novel, and so many ideas come to mind, but certainly, that's one that could work.

[9:25]Zibby Owens: You know, I have to say in rebound and the crossover, I know they're not intended for adults, but I found them to be, you know, on par, if not better than a lot of books that I read just for me. I mean, the way you talked about loss and, you know, the death of a parent or divorce, these are issues obviously that, you know, grown ups are wrestling with too, especially in how to talk to their kids about it. And I feel like you do such a good job of of telling it from the kids' point of view. You know, you say, like, in rebound, you know, I wish I could stretch my arms like Reed Richards all the way to heaven and hug my father one more time, just one more time. And then it was so beautiful and booked. You wrote, in the way a door closes. You wrote, from your window, you watch with love and happiness, sink like twins in quicksand when she drives away, leaving you suffocating in sleeplessness, out of breath and hope, exhausted, trapped, falling. And then in the crossover, there I'm sorry to butcher your writing with my horrible voice here, but you're I'm sure it's more melodic if you read it. But there are no coaches at funerals, no practice to get ready, no warm up. There is no last second shot, and we all wear its cruel midnight uniform, starless and unfriendly. I am unprepared for death. This is a game I cannot play. It has no rules, no referees. You cannot win. I mean, I literally get goosebumps every time I read this. Tell me about, like, how you how do you think you've managed to talk so beautifully across both adults and kids? And what's what has the effect been like on you? I mean, do people come up and thank you all the time? Just tell me tell me about it a little more.

[11:04]Kwame Alexander: Well, now that I hear you read it, wow. I mean, it is confirmed. I am a genius. Right? Woah. That's those are beautiful words. All I can say, Divya, is once you get into the rhythm of writing and the crossover was five years, booked was sort of two and a half years, rebound was two years. Once you get into the rhythm, it's sort of like a dream state. Like, I don't even remember writing those words. And so all I can figure is I sat in Panera Bread so long in the same chair that eventually, like, I just it just clicked. And I I think that's what happened with the writing. The more the longer you get involved and invested in these characters and the story, the more the story begins to write itself, and you become sort of the vessel. And are you open to being the vessel? And I'm I'm always open, like, to that sort of inspiration and that level of creativity. But wow, I gotta go back and read those books again.

[12:10]Zibby Owens: I mean, I could just read it to you all day. No, I'm kidding. But,

[12:14]Kwame Alexander: yeah, no, I mean, I hear from a lot of young people, a lot of adults, the impact that the books have had on them. And I think, yeah, some of it has to do with with with sort of me putting in the work, but I think a great part of it is the poetry. And I think poetry has that power. It's so short, you know, it's so few words. It's so much white space. Like, when it hits you, it's poetry is meant to get to your heart. Like, that's the goal of it. It's not a lot of words because each word counts, each word matters, and it's meant to sort of, you know, when done right, rip your heart out and stomp on it. And so I think that's one of the advantages to writing and poetry when you know what you're doing. And I guess I've just been doing it long enough that I at least think I know what I'm doing.

[13:10]Zibby Owens: I think you know what you're doing. If you don't, then I don't know who knows what they're doing. But Oh, thank you. You you also I like how you mix a bunch of different styles in your books. Like, sometimes you use more of this hip hop vibe, like in the crossover when you write ode to my hair. He wrote, if my hair were a tree, I'd climb it. I'd kneel down beneath and enshrine it. I'd treat it like gold and then mine it. Each day before school, I unwind it. And right before games, I entwine it. These on my head, I designed it. And one last thing, if you don't mind it, the bet you just made, I decline it. So you have that, like, mixed in with these sort of heartfelt, you know, inner feelings and monologues, you know, all these different styles sort of meshing to make this completely emotional read. Was that intentional, or do you just sort of, you know, just go where the words take you?

[14:01]Kwame Alexander: Yeah. It's it's intentional in the sense that, you know, the crossover took five years to get published, and that was one of the main concerns. Like, what are you doing? You're all over place. And and I was like, well, this is how the story needs to be told, and this is how I write. And there is no one way for me to, you know, write verse. And and I want kids to be exposed to a variety of verse. And and there's beauty in all of it, and there's different ways to tell different sides or different facets of the story. Not all, you know, facets can be told well with a rhyming couplet or a lit poem or a haiku. They all deserve their own sort of, you know, style. And so, yeah, I mean, I I just sort of feel where I am in the story, what type of poem dictates that. And I'm not sort of limited or I'm not sort of hemmed up by any notion of what I think or what I think publishers think it should be. And I was I've never, you know, felt that way. And, again, that's why it took so long and why it got so many rejections because that's sort of the conventional wisdom that it has to be one and it can't be all. Is it true that '22 publishers rejected the crossover before it went on to win the Newbery Medal?

[15:22]Zibby Owens: It is. Crazy. But it is. I know. Right? What was that like? Like, did you did you ever wanna just give up and just, you know, put it on the shelf and say forget it?

[15:32]Kwame Alexander: All the time. Like, I gave up. I gave up a lot. Like, but the I mean, every every time I got rejection, I I was like, I couldn't write the rest of the day. Was I packed up my bags, sad, but inevitably, like, I knew I was doing something that was pretty good, like, even though I was being told it wasn't. I knew that it was good, and I just had to constantly remind myself of that. And I love the story. Like, I loved it, and I figured if I love it, then it's when it gets published, it's probable that other people are gonna love it. Like or at least there's a better chance that other people are gonna love it. And, you know, especially like adults, when we talked about writing for adults. Like, I knew that it had to be a story about kids, but it had to be a story for everyone. Right.

[19:09]Zibby Owens: And is this in part why you started your own imprint, called Versify? So you could publish things that maybe other people didn't wanna take a chance on?

[19:20]Kwame Alexander: That's what I thought. That was yeah. Yeah. I wanted I wanted to find more Kwame's and more books that crossed over and and sort of, you know, build careers of writers who didn't have opportunities. And that was my goal. And it's so funny because it seems like so many of the books that would have gotten passed on four years ago, would have gotten rejected. They're all being bought now. Like, everybody's getting it now. They said, oh, well, the crossover sold, you know, a gang of copies and, you know, Verse is selling so well, then we're all gonna do it. So I've I've created a level of competition for myself.

[20:05]Zibby Owens: With rebound and the crossover, did you have it all planned out? Just the story, not not the not the way not the not the way you told it, but the, you know, the meat of it, the way everything sort of comes together in the end and you explain how everyone's related and you tie in, you know, like Filthy McNasty and even what they say to each other at night and all these amazing things between the two books. Did you have that goal at the outset or did you sort of decide to do that when you started the second book?

[20:36]Kwame Alexander: You mean with crossover and rebound? Yeah. Yeah. I knew that I knew that there needed to be connections. I knew that some of the connections already existed. I knew that some of them I was gonna have to sort of really dig up and say, oh, wait a minute. I think that's a connection too. Let me explore that. So some of them I knew in advance, and some of them I figured out later as I was writing.

[21:01]Zibby Owens: So is it true, and this is just a technical question, isn't April in Booked Skinny's daughter?

[21:09]Kwame Alexander: Yes.

[21:10]Zibby Owens: Good. Okay. How how cool how cool is that? That was really cool. I just wanted to make sure.

[21:18]Kwame Alexander: Yep. April is Skinny's daughter, and and I think the next book is about April.

[21:27]Zibby Owens: Nice.

[21:28]Kwame Alexander: Okay. Awesome. Who play who yeah. I think it's about April. So yep. Excellent.

[21:35]Zibby Owens: So I figured after reading these basketball centric works that you would be some sort of former champion basketball player. But then I read that you were actually a tennis star growing up, that you were number one on the tennis team and had traveled the country in the mid to late eighties playing tennis tournaments. This is true? This

[21:51]Kwame Alexander: is so true. I loved it. It was my sport. I mean, I love playing basketball, but I loved, like, being competitive in tennis and playing in tournaments. And probably because I just wasn't great or didn't spend a whole lot of time playing basketball, but tennis was something I I committed, you know,

[22:12]Zibby Owens: five or six years of my life to. I'm a huge tennis fan as well. Is there gonna be a a tennis book? Maybe called Net or Slice or something?

[22:21]Kwame Alexander: Well, I think it's there is gonna be a tennis book. I think it's gonna be called Love.

[22:27]Zibby Owens: Oh. I'm actually trying to I'm write writing a memoir myself right now called 40 Love about falling in love again at 40.

[22:35]Kwame Alexander: Oh, that's great. I love it. Thanks. I love it.

[22:41]Zibby Owens: I can't wait for your book now. That's amazing. That's awesome. So your poem, Take a Knee, which you originally released on ESPN, which is super interesting in and of itself, is your poetic commentary on our country today. Can you tell me more about the meaning and intention behind take a knee, and also what you think about the NFL recently requiring football players not to take a knee?

[23:08]Kwame Alexander: Like the NFL needs to watch the poem apparently. Yeah. I guess that. I mean, I wanted to sort of write about why we protest, why we write, why we take a knee. You know, the alternative, I think, for this country would be something that we are prepared for. And there's only so long that you can, you know, that you can take the life of a brown boy before a community of people, of people who care about the lives of boys, of children, stands up and fights back. And so this is a way of this community saying, stop. No more. This is a way to protest that. It is a way to do it in the spirit of, you know, Gandhi and and doctor King. It's a way to do it that doesn't really hurt anyone. And so and it's a way that people can remain sane. Like, how do you remain sane when when these lives of brown boys are being moved or being shifted or being are being blown away like like sand in a windstorm? Like, how do you remain sane in the midst of that when you have brown boys and children or if you teach brown boys or if you or whatever. If you're just a human being who understands the value of life, like, how do you how do you remain sane and just move on with your day? And I think one of the ways you do that is you you you raise your voice, and you share your voice, and you make your voice heard about what's wrong, and taking a knee is what does that. I mean, it's something really simple, and and you have to allow people you have to allow human beings the space to stand up for what's right. And so the poem was about that. And, again, if you don't want people taking a knee, if you think that's unpatriotic, wait till you see the alternative because that's not good for anyone.

[25:37]Zibby Owens: Yep. In your interview on the opposition with Jordan Klepper, you say that poetry is instant access to humanity. Can you explain what you meant by that?

[25:50]Kwame Alexander: Well, you said it best. You said after you read all three books, you cried. And you you had you had this emotional connection. Like, that's humanity. When you feel connected to other people, people you don't even know, Like, people you have no relationship with or but you just feel connections to them because they are human and you are human, and your your life and their life and and your experiences and their experiences have intersected in this moment. That's humanity. And I think, from my perspective, that's humanity. And I think books have a way of being able to make those connections for us before before we've even made them in our lives so they can be instruction and inspiration for us. And I think poetry is the most immediate way to get there. Like, of all the forms of literature and language, I think poetry can do that quicker, more substantial, and certainly, I think when done right, like like, more emotional.

[27:03]Zibby Owens: So my son Owen has a question for you. He wants to know how do you have time to write such good books with all the other things you're doing?

[27:12]Kwame Alexander: Owen, I have no idea. I don't even stop to think about it because I probably go crazy. I just do it. I just do it. I mean, I that's a great question. I have no idea how I get all this stuff done, but I know that I love it. I love my job.

[27:31]Zibby Owens: So can you tell me more about what's coming next? On on Instagram, you said you had just finished a book this weekend. What was that about?

[27:39]Kwame Alexander: It's a book, and the cover was just released today. The cover was just revealed today. It's it's a book about baseball and jazz music and social justice, and it's called swing. And it comes out on October 2, and I'm really excited about it. It's a different kind of novel. It's very different, but I feel like it's it's it's timely, and it's a good book.

[28:05]Zibby Owens: And will you write any more about the Bell family? I kinda wanna know what happens with them from here on out.

[28:13]Kwame Alexander: I'll never say no. If I can figure out another story to tell about them, sure. I get people ask me a lot to write about Roxy.

[28:21]Zibby Owens: Yeah,

[28:22]Kwame Alexander: I could see that. Or maybe there's a Roxy Bell story coming up. Who knows?

[28:28]Zibby Owens: And have you ever thought about any of your books sort of turning into film in any way?

[28:34]Kwame Alexander: Yeah. We've been working on crossover TV series for a long time. Oh, great. Yeah. So hopefully that will will come to pass. And certainly, I could see solo and and swing in movies. It's it's definitely the time that I've I've thought about.

[28:51]Zibby Owens: So I I just signed up for your solo book club for my kids for the summer. Can you tell can you tell listeners more about the book club? Say it one more time? The solo book club that you're launching for this summer. I guess you're releasing different guides and discussion videos while we all read solo together through the month of June.

[29:13]Kwame Alexander: Oh, yeah. It's something a little fun. We thought we do online. We'll, you know, we'll book club with the author, and I'll have I'll be doing some readings from the book, and I got some questions and stuff I'll be answering and some commentary, and it'll be kind of interactive. It'll be kind of fun.

[29:32]Zibby Owens: Awesome. And do you have any advice to aspiring writers out there, kids or grown ups?

[29:40]Kwame Alexander: I think just read as many good books as you can. You know, I think I was I was in Mexico this weekend, and I was on the beach, and I I did absolutely nothing but read. And I had planned on not writing for a while. I needed a break. And I read this one book by Kevin Young. It's called Brown. It's a collection of poems, and it just rocked my world. And I just love this book of poems, and I loved it so much that when I got back home, said, oh, I'm ready to start writing again. And of course, I had already decided I wasn't gonna write for a while. I needed a break. But I think a good book, a good book can sort of inspire you to not just wanna write, but to wanna write really good. To wanna write about something that matters. And so my advice would be read everything you can get your hands on and enjoy it and be inspired.

[30:33]Zibby Owens: And can you just tell me a little bit about all of your nonprofit work, like your work in Ghana? What would you like to know? So you have something called Leap for Ghana, which trains teachers and builds libraries and health clinics. How did you originally pick Ghana? And I know you there was something that you had started building a library but realized without a health clinic, it was a waste, right? They had to get people healthy first? Is that sort of what happened?

[31:00]Kwame Alexander: Yeah. It's all sort of like that. I've been going to Ghana for six years and just wanted to I've been going to a village that a friend of mine is the queen of, and I just wanted to do something in this village that helped match the resources or match their ambition with some resources because they didn't have a whole lot. And so, you know, decided the best of what I do is I write, I know books, so maybe a library would work. And then that sort of evolved into a library and a health clinic because I realized the library wasn't their idea, it was mine and I really needed to ask them what they wanted and of course they wanted a health clinic. So then the library evolved into a library and a health clinic and now it's evolved into a library health clinic, so the Internet cafe. And so it's evolved and it's opening in mid July, and I think it's been six years. It's been part of my life's work. And I'm excited once this is done, you know, I'm excited to see what's next. Like, I have no idea where am I going to go next, what am I going to do next. But I know I have to be doing something because I want to live this authentic life that's about trying to change the world. Otherwise, writing to change the world becomes MOOC. Like, what am I writing about? Why am I writing? I really want to be actively involved in trying to make the world a better place, trying to be a willing participant in this world.

[32:24]Zibby Owens: Well, like everything else that you've written and said, I find that super inspiring and a great note to end on. So thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And as you can tell, I'm a huge fan. Sorry to be totally, you know, ridiculously complimentary, but I I really do feel that your work is sensational. Thank you for if nothing else for entertaining my son for a couple hours so I can do something else. That's cool. Well, you're very welcome. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much. I can't wait to read love. Alright. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Take care. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.