New Books by Speakers
A 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer exhaustively examines his family’s legacy of post-enslavement trauma and resilience, in this riveting memoir—a soulful, shocking, and spellbinding read
This dazzling YA cli-fi written in prose and verse will speak to any reader struggling with the state of our world and how to understand their place in it. Told in gripping prose interspersed with poems from Juli’s writing journal, this genre-bending novel explores themes of immigration, climate justice, grief, and the power of communities.
While society often assigns the label “knucklehead” to kids with attitude problems, this brilliant and electric poetry collection by spoken word poet and hip-hop educator Tony Keith Jr. subverts that narrow way of thinking and empathizes with young people who are misunderstood and unheard.
Love, Rita is a brave and beautiful homage that not only celebrates the special, complex bond of sisterhood but also reveals what it is to live, and die, as a Black woman in America.
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.
This gripping graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking dystopian novel stands beside the acclaimed previous graphic novel adaptations, Kindred, a #1 New York Times bestseller, and Parable of the Sower, winner of the Hugo Award
A magisterial new history of the role of the Supreme Court as an ally in implementing and preserving a racial caste system in America
How the rich and powerful use math to exploit you, and what you can do to beat them at their own game… Everything we do today is recorded as data that’s sold to the highest bidder. Plugging our personal data into impersonal algorithms has made government agencies more efficient and tech companies more profitable. But all this comes at a price. It’s easy to feel like an insignificant number in a world of number crunchers who care more about their bottom line than your humanity. It’s time to flip the equation, turning math into an empowering tool for the rest of us.
A thrilling new history of the late Roman Republic, told through one woman’s quest for justice. One of Rome’s most powerful women, Clodia has been maligned over two thousand years as a promiscuous, husband-murdering harlot—thanks to her starring role in one of Cicero’s most famous speeches in the Forum. But Cicero was lying, in defense of his own property and interests. Like so many women libeled or erased from history, Clodia had a life that was much more interesting, complex, and nuanced than the corrupted version passed down through generations… And her story sheds light on what is happening in the United States today.
The UFO Files are the recently de-classified notes on a moment that captivates humanity: the arrival of an alien spacecraft on Planet Earth. The UFO Files is not just a compelling sci-fi story or a primer on core STEM subjects—it's both at once! Above all, it is a celebration of scientific curiosity, tolerance, and the awe that comes when we open our minds to the stars and wonder whether we are not alone.
From the acclaimed author of The Fire Is upon Us, the dramatic untold story of Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King Jr.’s decade-long clash over the meaning of freedom—and how their conflicting visions still divide American politics
2026 announcements coming soon!
Joel Christian Gill is the Inaugural Chair of Boston University’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Narrative and Associate Professor in the CFA School of Visual Arts. He is also a cartoonist and historian who speaks nationally on the importance of sharing stories. He is the author of the acclaimed memoir Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence, cited as one of the best graphic novels of 2020 by The New York Times and for which he was awarded the 2021 Cartoonist Studio Prize. He wrote the words and drew the pictures for Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride and the award-winning graphic novel series Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, as well as 3 volumes of Tales of The Talented Tenth, which tell the stories of Bass Reeves, Bessie Stringfield and Robert Smalls. His newest work is the graphic novel of Ibram Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Ten Speed Press 2023).Gill h as dedicated his life to creating stories to build connections with readers through empathy, compassion and, ultimately, humanity. He received his MFA from Boston University and his BA from Roanoke College.
Kathryn Hulick is a freelance journalist who covers AI and computing for Science News and Science News Explores. She's also the author of books for young people or anyone who is curious. Her book The UFO Files (Quarto, 2025) combines a sci-fi story with scientific explanations of the marvels found on board an alien spacecraft. Her book Welcome To The Future (Quarto, 2021) is about how technology could change the world, and Strange But True (Quarto, 2019) uses critical thinking to explore the science behind paranormal mysteries.
Tony Keith Jr., PhD is an award-winning Black American gay poet, spoken word artist, and Hip-Hop educational leader from Washington DC. Or, you can just call him an “Ed Emcee”. He is the debut author of How the Boogeyman Became a Poet and Knucklehead (February 2025), both published by HarperCollins. A multi-year fellow of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Tony has featured performances at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington National Cathedral, Historic Lincoln Theatre, Bus Boys & Poets, and in schools and communities around the world including South Africa, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago and many more. His poem Black Man On Fire won first prize in the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest and his performance of Code Switched is featured in the award-winning documentary series Talking Black in America and published in the book Centering Possibility in Black Education. He is a former cultural center director at Penn State University and University of North Carolina Charlotte, and served as an adjunct professor and academic advisor at the University of the District of Columbia and the University of Maryland College Park (UMD). Tony is co-author of the award-winning book Open Mic Night: Campus Programs that Champion College Student Voice and Engagement.
Gloria Muñoz is a Colombian American writer, translator, and advocate for multilingual literacy. She is the author of This is the Year, Your Biome Has Found You, and Danzirly, which won the Ambroggio Prize and the Gold Medal Florida Book Award. Her other honors include an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship, Hedgebrook Fellowship, being a Macondista, Highlights Foundation’s Diverse Verse Fellowship, Lumina’s Multilingual Writing Award, and a part of Las Musas. She is proud to be St. Pete's first Latina poet laureate. Through Moonlit Música, a bilingual media company she co-founded, she writes narrative scripts and songs for children, adolescent, and adult programming. Notable clients include The New York Times, Comedy Central, hulu, Rebel Girls, Apple tv, Google, FX, and Hatch, for which she has developed beloved sleep story characters, including Mari Mariposa, a bilingual butterfly with a passion for community building.
Tiffany Jewell is a Black biracial writer, twin sister, first generation American, cisgender mama, anti-bias antiracist (ABAR) educator, and consultant. She is the author of the #1 New York Times and #1 Indie Bestseller, This Book Is Anti-Racist, a book for young folks and everyone to wake up, take action, and do the work of becoming antiracist and The Antiracist Kid: A Book About Identity, Justice, and Activism. Tiffany is currently working on multiple book projects for readers of all ages. Her latest book, Everything I Learned About Racism I Learned in School (2024) focuses on the experiences Black and Brown students face as a direct result of the racism built into schools across the United States.