Last week the Missouri State University Libraries was notified that an LSTA grant in the amount of $3,500 had been awarded to bring the award-winning author Kwame Alexander to the main Springfield campus next April. With matching funds from various sources, the total project cost will be $12,500. 

Dr. Grace Jackson-Brown, a Professor of Library and Information Science at MSU, wrote the grant application and will serve as Project Director. 

Dr. Jackson-Brown applied for an Educator Presenter Grant titled “Springfield’s libraries and other educational agencies join forces to host author Kwame Alexander.”

Her grant proposal calls for an educational writing workshop and library presentation by Mr. Alexander, co-sponsored by the Springfield African American Read-In (a collaborative partnership of the Missouri State University Libraries, Springfield-Greene County Libraries, Springfield Public School, Drury University, and the Springfield NAACP Chapter), and the MSU Agency for Teaching, Leading, and Learning that serves 94 school districts in the Southwest Region by providing K-12 teacher development. The priorities of the IMLS/LSTA funding program are supporting an Educated and Informed Citizenry and Serving the Underserved.

In 2015 Kwame Alexander was awarded the Newbery Medal, the top children’s literature award, for his book The Crossover. The book, one of 36 Alexander has published to date, also won the NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor, The Paterson Poetry Prize, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, and the Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor.

In addition to being an author, Alexander is an educator, publisher, and executive producer of a TV series. Last month the first volume his new trilogy, The Door of No Return, was published.

This project is supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Missouri State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.

Congratulations, Dr. Jackson-Brown.