Kwame Alexander: A writer-of-all-trades

Kwame Alexander has a great laugh.

Book lovers in Eastern Iowa are sure to hear it on Friday evening when Alexander is in town for the Out Loud! Author Series hosted by the Metro Library Network.

Undoubtedly best known for his 2015 Newbury Medal winning novel 'The Crossover,” Alexander is the author of some 24 books for children, teens and adults.

'I do it all,” he said by phone from New York City. 'I do ages 1 to 99. I began my career writing books of love poems for adults so the first 12 years of career my audiences were adults. And I loved it.”

His years of experience writing for all ages have made him a versatile speaker.

'I find that I end up doing some variation of the same thing wherever I am. Regardless of our age, we all care and are interested in the same things: love, family, friendship, and what am I going to do in this list to be successful and have fun. Am I going to be able to go swimming today after school, or am I going to get this job? What are the things that are going to make us happy in this world? I talk about that because that is what I care about.”

Trained as a poet, Alexander started writing for children because of his own life experience.

'I had a 15-year-old daughter at home who wanted to go out on a date, and I thought that was the craziest thing in the world, and my second daughter was born that year,” he recalled. 'So I was writing love poems about my teenage life trying to understand and remember and be able to relate to my teenage daughter, and at the same time I'm reading Mo Willems to my little one. So my sensibilities began to change and adapt, and I began to write for these audiences who were in my home.”

Around that same time, while reading love poems at a conference in Florida, Alexander was approached by an editor who asked if he'd ever thought of writing poetry for kids.

'I had never thought about writing books for that age, but my answer was yes because: a) I knew what I had been writing at home; and b) I'm a say yes person,” he said. 'I love opportunities and walking through doors and figuring out what's on the other side and making it happen. I wrote a picture book and she loved it. It was called ‘Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band,' and it changed my life,” he said with a laugh.

His life changed indeed, as Alexander continues to crank out award-winning books for children and teens and spends a fair amount of his time traveling around the country - and the world - to meet with young readers. Last year alone, he visited 177 schools.

He finds time to write amid all the travel.

'I usually wake up and write for two hours in my hotel room before going to workout for half an hour. I also write on airplanes and can usually get an hour or two of writing in then. When I'm at home I write for four hours a day.”

With contracts for eight books over the next five years, Alexander said he can't afford not to find the time to write.

'That's a lot of inspiration right there because I signed on the dotted line,” he said and laughed again.

His next book coming out in August, called 'Solo,” is geared toward teens and focuses on a teenage rock musician. Set in Hollywood and Ghana - where he's been able to travel extensively over the last five years - Alexander said it's a love story to the rock ‘n' roll music that defined his own high school career.

'And it's a story about this notion that if you want love, you have to give it. In order to give love, you have to have it. It's about that journey of self-discovery, and I'm really excited about it.”

Alexander said kids aren't surprised by sparse concise language in all of his books.

'It's how they talk; it's how they post on Instagram. It's a lot of white space and that makes it not intimidating,” he said. 'Adults are the ones that carry this baggage of poetry being incomprehensible or stale or boring. I can't tell you how many librarians just wouldn't even show ‘The Crossover' to their students because they thought they weren't going to like it. Of course the kids picked it up because they like basketball. They read it and loved it, and then the librarians began to catch on.”

'You complete a poem in ‘The Crossover' in one page and you are done with that chapter and that builds confidence,” he added. 'You are able to turn the page. Especially if you are a ‘reluctant reader.' I just think it's the bridge to get kids engaged with reading and writing.”

As for winning the Newbury Medal, Alexander said it's still new to him.

'It's been two years and four months, but who's counting?” he said. 'I wake up and laugh and pinch myself every day. I feel completely blessed. It's done so much for my career and every time I get asked about it I get choked up. It's gotten the book in more hands and given kids access to it, which was always the goal to have as many kids as possible read it. I always felt like it was the best thing I'd ever written. It was book number 14, and it was good to see that it got recognized in that manner.”

He plans to continue writing in verse and inspiring kids through sports. His latest books, 'The Playbook: 52 Ways to Aim, Shoot and Score in This Game Called Life,” does just that.

'As a parent it excites me to see my daughter want to compete, understand the notion of practice and understanding that when you make a mistake - missing a shot or hitting the ball into the net - you still have the next play,” he said. 'All these things that she's learning from playing sports, in addition to being great physically for the exercise, are also great off the court. It's teaching her things she's going to be able to apply to her life. And that is something I try to do with these books. I wrote about basketball and soccer, and I'm going to write one about baseball and then one about tennis. They are ultimately about family and friendship and love and finding yourself and understanding yourself better and dealing with the woes and wonders of the world. I think sports are the great metaphor for how to teach these stories I want to teach. Ultimately, I'm a message driven writer. I have a point, but I don't beat you over the head with it and be didactic with it.”

'Poetry is a tremendous, surefire way to be able talk about really powerful emotional things in very concise and sparse text that allows us to handle it pretty easily,” he said. 'You can use it to teach life lessons. Poetry is blessings from the woes and wonders of the world - small, beautiful, dramatic, loving, hopeful, tragic and, ultimately, inspiring for all of us no matter our age.”