Join award-winners, author Nikki Grimes and illustrator and fine artist E.B. Lewis, for a conversation about how their work brings historical figures to life and how research impacts their art as they create original works of historical fiction. These two prolific creators of children’s literature will be together on stage for the first time for a conversation focusing on their collaborations: Stronger Than and Talking About Bessie: the Story of Aviator Bessie Coleman.
About the speakers:
Nikki Grimes: New York Times bestselling author Nikki Grimes was inducted into the Black Authors Hall of Fame in 2023. Her honors include the CSK Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the ALAN Award for significant contributions to young adult literature, the Children’s Literature Legacy Medal, and the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Author of the Coretta Scott King Award-winner Bronx Masquerade, and five Coretta Scott King Author Honors, she won the Printz Honor and Sibert Honor for her memoir Ordinary Hazards. Her latest titles include Garvey’s Choice:The Graphic Novel, a School Library Journal 2023 Best Book; Lullaby for the King, one of Book Riot’s 25 Best Christmas Books of All Time; and A Walk in the Woods, recipient of 8 starred reviews, and 11 Best Book listings for 2023, including the New York Times, NPR, and Smithsonian Magazine. Ms. Grimes lives in Corona, California. Find out more here.
E.B. Lewis: The award winning illustrator and fine artist, E.B. Lewis has illustrated over seventy books for children, including: Jacqueline Woodson’s 2004 Caldecott Honor Award Winner Coming on Home Soon; Five time Coretta Scott King winner Nikki Grimes’ Talking About Bessie; Jabari Asim’s New York Times 2016 Best Illustrated Book Award, Kirkus 2016 Best Illustrated Book Award, and the 2016 Golden Kite Honor Award, Preaching to the Chicken’s. Inspired by two artist uncles, as early as the third grade, Lewis displayed artistic promise. Beginning in the sixth grade, he attended the Saturday Morning Art League and studied with Clarence Wood. Lewis attended the Temple University Tyler School of Art, where he discovered his medium of preference was watercolor. Presently, E.B. teaches at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He is also a member of The Society of Illustrators in New York City, and an artist member of Salamagundi Art Club of New York. In 2003, the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota purchased a collection of original watercolors from E.B.’s first fifty children’s books. Today, his works are displayed in museums, owned by private collectors, and sold by art galleries throughout the United States and Europe. Find out more here.
