The New Book: Poems, Letters, Blurbs, and Things Audiobook

About Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni (1943–2024) was an American poet, writer, activist, commentator, and educator. She was the recipient of more than sixty personal awards, and her works also earned awards. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, after which she became one of America’s most widely read poets, writing many books of poetry for children and adults. She called herself, “a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English.” She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University.

About the Narrators

Bahni Turpin, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and several prestigious Audie Awards for her narrations, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. Publishers Weekly magazine named her Narrator of the Year for 2016. She is an ensemble member of the Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles. She has guest starred in many television series, including NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Six Feet Under, Cold Case, What about Brian, and The Comeback. Film credits include Brokedown Palace, Crossroads, and Daughters of the Dust. She is also a member of the recording cast of The Help, which won numerous awards.

January LaVoy, winner of numerous awards for narration, was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She is an American actress best known for her character Noelle Ortiz on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. In addition to working extensively in narration and television, including roles on Law & Order and All My Children, she has worked on and off Broadway as well as in regional theater.

Robin Miles, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, an Audie Award for directing, and many Earphones Awards. Her film and television acting credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic’s Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live. She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors’ unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching. She holds a BA degree in theater studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.

Aden Hakimi is a voice-over actor based in Brooklyn. He studied theater performance at Northeastern University in Boston, with adjunct studies at Cambridge University in England and the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. For over a decade, he has done voice work for audiobooks, commercials, animation, and corporate videos.

January LaVoy, winner of numerous awards for narration, was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She is an American actress best known for her character Noelle Ortiz on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live. In addition to working extensively in narration and television, including roles on Law & Order and All My Children, she has worked on and off Broadway as well as in regional theater.

Kwame Alexander is a poet, speaker, educator, and bestselling author of more than three dozen books, including books that have won the Caldecott Medal, Newbery Medal, Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, and the Pat Conroy Legacy Award. He is the cofounder of LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy program. He is a regular contributor to NPR's Morning Edition. Visit him at kwamealexander.com on IG and Twitter @kwamealexander.

Saskia Maarleveld is an experienced voice-over actress and Earphones Award–winning narrator. Raised in New Zealand and France, she is highly skilled with accents and dialects, and many of her books have been narrated entirely in accents other than her own. In addition to audiobooks, her voice can be heard in animation, video games, and commercials.

Renée Watson is the author of This Side of Home, which was nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Her picture book Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills received several honors including an NAACP Image Award nomination in children’s literature. She is also the founder of the I, Too Arts Collective and currently teaches courses on writing for children at University of New Haven and Pine Manor College.

Kevin Young is the author of a books nonfiction and several books of poetry, including Blue Laws, which was long-listed for the National Book Award. He is the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida, Nicole Sealey is the author of The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her other honors include an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from the American Poetry Review, a Daniel Varoujan Award, and the Poetry International Prize, as well as fellowships from CantoMundo, Cave Canem, MacDowell Colony, and the Poetry Project. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker and elsewhere. Nicole holds an MLA in Africana Studies from the University of South Florida and an MFA in creative writing from New York University. She is the Executive Director at Cave Canem Foundation.

Mahogany L. Browne is a writer, play-wright, organizer, and educator. She was a named a Kennedy Center Next 50 fellow. Founder of the diverse lit initia-tive Woke Baby Book Fair, she is the 2024 winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. She is the inaugural poet in residence at the Lincoln Center.

Jericho Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received numerous prizes, including the Whiting Award. Brown’s poems have appeared in numerous major publications. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University, and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Amanda Gorman is the youngest presidential inaugural poet in US history. She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hill We Climb, Call Us What We Carry, and the children’s picture books Change Sings and Something, Someday. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award and was honored with the Chairman’s Award at the 55th NAACP Image Awards. In a groundbreaking collaboration with the Estée Lauder Companies as a Global Changemaker, she established the Writing Change initiative to support grassroots organizations dedicated to advancing literacy as a pathway to social change. She graduated cum laude from Harvard University and now lives in her hometown of Los Angeles. Please visit her at TheAmandaGorman.com or on Instagram @AmandaSCGorman.

Tabitha Brown is an actress, author, and online media star who is affectionately known as “America’s mom.” She has provided millions with food for the body and soul through her videos capturing delicious home-cooked vegan recipes and everyday wisdom rooted in love, kindness, and compassion. Her first book, Feeding the Soul (Because It’s My Business), a New York Times bestseller, won a 2022 NAACP Image Award. She also received the 2021 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Social Media Personality. She can be seen as the host on Food Network’s It’s CompliPlated; on her YouTube children’s series, Tab Time; on her show All Love on the Ellen Digital Network; and on season four of Showtime’s The Chi. She is also a successful businesswoman, with several lines of products.

Nancy Johnson worked for more than a decade as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates in markets nationwide. A graduate of Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she manages brand communications for a large nonprofit. The Kindest Lie is her first book.

Patricia Smith is an inductee of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement, and a winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. She is the author of nine acclaimed books of poetry, including Unshuttered; Incendiary Art, finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize and winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the 2018 NAACP Image Award; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and Blood Dazzler, a National Book Award finalist. A Guggenheim Fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, Smith is a creative writing professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University and a former distinguished professor at the City University of New York.