Kwame Mbalia

We have a poster in the, on the wall in front of me that you can't see, but we're publishing a YA called On Again Awkward Again, that is very much in that, like, young YA.

It's by Erin Entrada Kelly and Kwame Mbalia.

Oh.

Powerhouse co-authors, and it's just about these two kids that are, like, super awkward.

I mean, like genuinely one of the all-time goats of contemporary literature, the majesty of what he's built and the path that he's paved for all of us.

Because you don't get a Candace Elo or you don't get a Liz Acevedo without the kind of foundation that him and the Kwame Alexanders all have managed to like build in this world you look at somebody who like him passing like some of that torch on to somebody like Kwame Mbalia who did the Tristan Strong series and is now Tristan Jackson I believe and if I've got if I got the name wrong I am going to be kicking myself but what a Jax Freeman Jax Freeman that's what it's called I don't know how I got Jackson out of that but Yeah, no, I mean, what he built with that Black Boy Joy anthology and how it is correlated into Leah Johnson creating Black Girl Power.

Leah Johnson, who is like one of our grand bright lights in American letters, the work that she is doing in creating Loudmouth, in creating a book like Ellie Engle or You Should See Me in a Crown.

I mean, I have told Leah this to her face a number of times, but I'm going to just make sure that I had a chance to say it to your viewers as well.