Alicia D. Williams

Alicia D. Williams is an award-winning author of four books for young readers. She graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York and received her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. Williams is a highly acclaimed storyteller of folktales, a writer, and star of one-woman shows, including A Time to Remember. She is a Master Teaching Artist of arts-integration and lives in Charlotte, NC.

Williams’ debut middle-grade novel, Genesis Begins Again won a Newbery Medal Honor Award, the Coretta Scott King—John Steptoe for New Talent Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Prize as well as the Kirkus Prize. It was also an NPR Favorite Book of 2019 and a School Library Journal Best Book. In addition, the audiobook for Genesis Begins Again, which Williams recorded herself, was an Audie Awards Finalist.

Her first picture book, Jump At The Sun: The True Life Tale of Unstoppable Storycatcher Zora Neale Hurston, was named an NEA Read Across America Book. While Williams’ latest picture book, The Talk, won a Coretta Scott King Honor Award and a Golden Kite Honor Award. Her nonfiction picture book, Shirley Chisholm Dared, The Story of the First Black Woman in Congress, won the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award.