12/1/2023 0 Comments Patina novelHe appeared on Antiques Roadshow in 2021 to discuss his collecting. He collects items related to African-American literature, including a letter by Langston Hughes, a pre-publication review copy of Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land and an autographed first edition copy of Toni Morrison's Beloved. Reynolds moved back to Washington, D.C., from Brooklyn in 2016. For some kids, this was their life." Personal life While at Karibu he also encountered street fiction, also known as urban fiction, which is a literary genre Reynolds compares to rap's capacity for being "raw and honest. Enthralled with Wright's novel from the first page, Reynolds next began making his way through the great works of African-American literature on the store's shelves, reading James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. At Karibu he encountered prose that resonated with him for the first time, such as Richard Wright's novel Black Boy. ĭuring college, Reynolds also worked at a DC bookstore chain called Karibu Books, which specialized in African-American literature. Reynolds was also introduced to spoken word in this period and began performing, including eventually solo shows, and in 2001, his first book came out, a poetry collection called Let Me Speak. While an undergraduate, Reynolds met collaborator Jason Griffin, who became his roommate. Moved by these experiences of "the power of language", he continued to pursue poetry through high school, graduating from Bishop McNamara High School in 2000, and college, even as he received poor grades and discouragement from professors in his English courses at the University of Maryland (he ultimately graduated with a BA in English.) He wrote a few lines in an effort to console his mother, who printed the poem on the program for the funeral, and after that Reynolds wrote poems as each of his grandmother's siblings passed. One of Reynolds's earliest poems dealt with his grandmother's death in 1994 when he was 10. In the meantime, Tupac and Biggie also formed major influences. Outside of her rap, few literary works spoke to his experience of urban life growing up as a black child and then teenager in the 1980s and 1990s, and he didn't start reading books until he was 17. Third album, Black Reign, to start writing poetry. Īt nine years old, Reynolds was inspired by Queen Latifah's Reynolds was born on December 6, 1983, in Washington, DC, and grew up just across Maryland border in Oxon Hill, a neighborhood where his mother, a specialĮducation teacher in a Maryland public school, could afford a house with a yard and enough space for Reynolds, his three siblings, and sometimes other extended family. Reynolds was named as the Library of Congress' national ambassador for young people's literature in January 2020. In 2019, he wrote Look Both Ways, for which he won a Carnegie Medal. In 2017, Reynolds returned to poetry with Long Way Down, a novel in verse that was named a Newbery Honor book, a Printz Honor Book, and best young adult work by the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards. Reynolds also wrote a Marvel Comics novel called Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017). Ghost was a National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature and As Brave As You won the Kirkus Prize, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teen, and the Schneider Family Book Award. In the next four years, Reynolds wrote eight more novels, most notably the New York Times best-selling Track series- Ghost (2016), Patina (2017), Sunny (2018), Lu (2018)-and As Brave As You (2016). Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing several poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, When I Was The Greatest, which won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience.
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