KWAME ALEXANDER & RANDY PRESTON ON HOW TO SING A SONG & BLACK STAR – A CONVERSATION

KWAME ALEXANDER is a poet, educator, publisher, two-time Emmy-nominated writer/producer, and the No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of 39 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances (Little, Brown and Company), The Door of No Return (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), and Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope(Mariner Books). A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, Alexander is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2016 and 2020 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and the 2017 inaugural Conroy Legacy Award. In 2018, he founded the publishing imprint Versify. He opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana as part of the Literacy Empowerment Action Project (LEAP), an international literacy program he cofounded. Alexander’s work and podcast Why Fathers Cry can be found online at KwameAlexander.com.

RANDY PRESTON is an African Native American (Piscataway) composer, author, and performer, raised in the U.K., Zimbabwe, and Kenya. He started writing music at the age of 7 and never stopped. He taught English literature for 18 years before collaborating with Kwame Alexander, performing at numerous schools and venues around the world. Preston wrote original songs for several picture books and children’s shows and composed the score for the musical Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie, starring Indigo Blume.