Award-winning Author, Jacqueline Woodson Wins Prestigious Book Award

As What's The 411TV's book editor, I had the pleasure of interviewing award-winning author, Jacqueline Woodson, at the 65th Annual National Book Awards on November 19, 2014, at Cipriani Wall Street. At the time of the interview, Jacqueline Woodson was a three-time National Book Awards Finalist in the Young Adult Category. I predicted three times would be a charm and the judges agreed, three times was a charm. Jacqueline Woodson won the National Book Award for Young Adult Literature for her memoir, BROWN GIRL DREAMING.

Read an excerpt of BROWN GIRL DREAMING.

VIDEO: National Book Award Winner, Jacqueline Woodson

In addition to winning a National Book Award for her book, BROWN GIRL DREAMING, Jacqueline Woodson is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, the recipient of three Newbery Honor Medals for After Tupac & D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way, and a two-time Finalist for the National Book Award for Locomotion and Hush. Other awards include the Coretta Scott King Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Miracle's Boys. Her most recent books are her novel Beneath a Meth Moon and her picture books Each Kindness and This Is the Rope. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York. For more, visit: jacquelinewoodson.com.

Poet and University of California at Riverside professor, Fred Moten, is a 2014 National Book Awards Finalist for Poetry for his book, THE FEEL TRIO.

As What's The 411TV's book editor, I had an opportunity to talk with Fred Moten at the 65th Annual National Book Awards on November 19, 2014, at Cipriani Wall Street.  THE FEEL TRIO is Cecil Taylor, Tony Oxley and William Parker and the book brings movement and music forward through poetry. Even James Brown comes to life within the pages of THE FEEL TRIO.

WATCH VIDEO: National Book Awards Finalist Fred Moten

Fred Moten is a professor of English at the University of California—Riverside and the author of In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, Hughson's Tavern, B. Jenkins, and co-author, with Stefano Harney, of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. In 2009, Moten was recognized as one of ten "New American Poets" by the Poetry Society of America. He is also co-founder and co-publisher (with Joseph Donahue) of a small literary press called Three Count Pour. 

Hear Fred Moten in his own words and read more information about the THE FEEL TRIO, here.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Claudia Rankine is a poet, playwright, university professor, and a 2014 National Book Award Finalist for Poetry for her book, CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC.

As What's The 411TV's book editor, I spoke with Claudia Rankine at the 65th Annual National Book Awards on November 19, 2014, at Cipriani Wall Street. CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC, Ms. Rankine's nominated book, uses the power of poetry, prose, and images to shed light on the insidious behavior of micro-aggression.

Watch video interview with National Book Award Finalist for Poetry, Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine is the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College and the author of four collections of poetry, including Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric, PLOT, The End of the Alphabet, and Nothing in Nature is Private, which received the Cleveland State Poetry Prize. She is a winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize and a recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poetry, the National Endowments for the Arts, and the Lannan Foundation. In 2006, she served as a Judge for the National Book Award for Poetry.

To hear Claudia Rankine in her own words and to read an excerpt of CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC, click here.

For more information about Claudia Rankine, visit: www.claudiarankine.com

Award-winning young adult author, Coe Booth, is a fiction writer. She was also a judge for the 2009 National Book Awards.

At the 2014 National Book Awards, What's The 411TV book editor, Luvon Roberson, chatted with Coe Booth about her experience as a judge for the National Book Awards and her various books for young adults. Growing up in Bronx, New York, Coe Booth knew she wanted to be a writer in the second grade. Although she prepared to be a writer, her path to full time writer wasn't a direct one. After college, Coe Booth took other safe jobs, however, these jobs did not feed her soul. With four books in her repertoire, this award-winning writer is now a full time writer and she teaches part time at Bronx Community College.

As a judge for the National Book Awards, Coe Booth had to read 285 books within six months. Serious about her responsibilities as a judge for the National Book Awards, she even took a suitcase filled with books on a vacation cruise.

Check out the video: Award-winning writer, Coe Booth 

Coe Booth calls herself a "Bronx girl" who, even in the face of discouraging words, dreamed of becoming a writer. She is the author of KINDA LIKE BROTHERS and two novels for young adults: KENDRA, published in 2008, and TYRELL, published in 2006. She received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction for TYRELL in 2006, which The New York Times Book Review called "gritty and gripping." Ms. Booth is a 2009 National Book Awards Young People's Literature Judge.

To learn more about Coe Booth, visit: www.coebooth.com