Writers & Illustrators of North Carolina

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Barbara O'Connor has won the NCSLMA NC Junior Book Award for her novel Wish, and Alan Gratz has won the NCSLMA Young Adult Book Award in the Middle School category for Projekt 1065.

WINC welcomes new member Gordon C. James.

Barbara Younger's manuscript Christabel and Mr. Reader, a picture book bio of Randolph Caldecott, won Honorable Mention for the 2018 Katherine Paterson Prize for YA and Children's Writing.

Kelly Starling Lyons and Vanessa Brantley-Newton's Jada Jones: Rock Star is a Maryland Blue Crab Young Reader Award Honor Book (transitional readers category).

Congrats to Carter G. Woodson Book Award and Honor Winners

Vanessa Brantley-Newton's The Youngest Marcher, written by Cynthia Levinson, and Carole Weatherford's Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library, illustrated by Eric Velasquez.

Alan Gratz's Code of Honor has won the 2017-2018 South Carolina Junior Book Award.

Vanessa Brantley-Newton's The Youngest Marcher and Carole Weatherford's Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library were named

ALSC 2018 Notable Children's Books along with multiple award winner Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes.

Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes and illustrated by Gordon C. James earned a quartet of honors at the 2018 ALA Youth Media Awards: a 2018 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book award for Barnes, a 2018 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book award for James, and both a Randolph Caldecott Honor medal and a John Newbery Honor medal as well. These four honors came on the heels of Barnes' 2018 Ezra Jack Keats Author Award win. Crown was also named one of the best books of 2017 by NPR, the Huffington Post, PW, Kirkus, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, the Horn Book Magazine, the News & Observer, Bookpage, the Chicago Public Library and others.

Vanessa Brantley-Newton was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, Outstanding Literary Work Children’s category, for her illustrations in The Youngest Marcher, The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, A Young Civil Rights Activist by Cynthia Levinson.

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Weatherford and illustrated by Eric Velasquez was voted the 2018 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Award winner in the non-fiction for younger readers category.

Refugee by Alan Gratz has won the 2018 Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Older Readers category.

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Weatherford and illustrated by Eric Velasquez has won the 2018 Walter Dean Myers Award in the Young Readers category.

Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes and illustrated by Gordon C. James and Refugee by Alan Gratz are PW Best Books of 2017.

Two short films based on Jacqueline Ogburn's picture books Scarlett Angelina Wolverton-Manning and The Bakeshop Ghost will be featured at the Louisville International Film Festival. Click on the images for info.

Scholastic Scope Magazine's September issue features Eleanora E. Tate's story Into the Storm, a version of an original short story Big Things Come in Small Packages from her story collection Don't Split the Pole: Tales of Down-Home Folk Wisdom. (Story art: Shane Rebenschied)

WINC grieves the passing of WINC emerita Luli Gray on August 16.

Alan Gratz and his newest book Refugee are featured in the Horn Book's September Talks with Roger and in related August articles in the New York Times Books section here and here. Also, check out Alan's post about his other new book, Ban This Book, on John Scalzi's blog.

Monika Schröder's Be Light Like a Bird and Alan Gratz's Projekt 1065 are nominees for the NC School Library Media Association Youth Book Award 2017-2018.

Barbara O'Connor's, Wish, has won the SCBWI 2017 Crystal Kite Award for the SouthEast Division.

Carole Weatherford's Freedom in Congo Square, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, has been named a 2017 Caldecott Honor Book as well as a 2017 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book.

Weatherford and Freedom in Congo Square also won the 2017 Charlotte Zolotow Award. She is the twentieth winner of this annual award, given for outstanding writing in a picture book. The award is given by the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) in Madison, Wisconsin.

Many of us were proud signatories of this Declaration against bigotry and in support of children and literature created by WINC members Kelly Starling Lyons, Tameka Fryer Brown, and the other inspiring authors at The Brown Bookshelf, noted on HuffPost and in The Guardian and in SLJ, among others. The accompanying Illustration, below, is by Vanessa Brantley-Newton.

Alan Gratz's Projekt 1065, Megan Shepherd's The Secret Horses of Briar Hill, and Carole Weatherford's Freedom in Congo Square, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, as well as You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, illustrated by Jeffery Weatherford were named Kirkus Best Books of 2016.

Freedom in Congo Square, by Carole Weatherford and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie is an 2017 ALA Notable Book, a 2016 Washington Post Best Book for Children and Young Adults, an SLJ Best Nonfiction Book of 2016 and a Horn Book Fanfare Best Book of 2016. Freedom and You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, illustrated by Jeffery Weatherford, both made the 2016 New York Public Library Best Books for Kids list. You Can Flywas also named a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young people by the Children's Book Council and the National Council for Social Studies.

The 2016 AAUW Award for Juvenile Literature was presented to Sheila Turnage at the NC Literary and Historical Association Meeting for her book, The Odds of Getting Even.

Three NC artists and activists - Vanessa Brantley-Newton, Blaine Way, and Glen Warren - discussed how positive images of black fathers are crucial in this time on PBS's Black Issues Forum.

Monika Schröder talks with Horn Book editor-in-chief Roger Sutton and to SLJ, here, about her new book Be Light Like a Bird.

The exhibition Patchwork North America : Paintings by Virginia Wright-Frierson has been extended to September 11, 2016 at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC.

WINC authors Kelly Starling Lyons (r), Barbara O'Connor and Monika Schröder (l/c, l/r) at ALA 2016 Orlando.

Carole Weatherford's Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hammer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, illus. by Ekua Holmes, won a 2016 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award in the nonfiction category.

Carole Weatherford's Sugar Hill: Harlems Historic Neighborhood, illus. by R Gregory Christie, won the Arnold Adoff Honor Poetry Award, given at the Virginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature at Kent State.

Alan Gratz's Prisoner B-3087 received the 2016 Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award in the Middle School category.

A film of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth starring Game of Thrones' star Maisie Williams is set to begin shooting in Romania in 2017.

J.J. Johnson's Believarexic and Alan Gratz's Code of Honor made the 2016 ILA Young Adult's Choices Reading List. Believarexic has also been nominated for The Keystone to Reading Readers' Choice Award.

Prix Farniente has announced that J.J. Johnson's book Cette fille est différente (This Girl is Different) won for 2016 in the 17 years and up category.

Many WINC members signed an Open Letter to NC Governor McCrory and the NC General Assembly calling for the immediate repeal of NC HB2. That letter was featured in Shelf Awareness and mentioned in a New York Times op ed.

Alan Gratz's Prisoner B-3087 won the South Carolina 2015-16 Junior Book Award.

Carole Weatherford's Gordon Parks, How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, illustrated by Jamie Christoph won the 2016 NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Literary Work - Children category.

Julie Fortenberry's Sadie and Ori and the Blue Blanket, written by Jamie Korngold, was named a 2016 Sydney Taylor Notable Book for Young Readers.

Trifecta! Carole Weatherford's Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hammer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrated by Ekua Holmes was awarded a 2016 Caldecott Honor Medal, a 2016 Sibert Honor Award, and the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award for illustrator Ekua Holmes.

A number of WINC authors with new or upcoming titles can be found on The Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrator's Book Launch Party. Check out Alan Gratz, Kelly Starling Lyons, and Joan Holub's pages on the SCBWI site.

Carole Weatherford's Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hammer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrated by Ekua Holmes, has received a Parent's Choice Gold Award.

Wake County Public Libraries and the North Carolina Museum of History will honor WINC's Eleanora E. Tate with a series of programs on her work. This year marks milestone anniversaries for three of her acclaimed titles: African American Musicians turned 15. Thank You, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. turned 25. Just An Overnight Guest turned 35.

WINC welcomes new members Derrick Barnes and Megan Bryant.

WINC was well represented at SIBA this year. Carrie Ryan joined the pictured Alan Gratz, J. J. Johnson, and Joan Holub.

WINC welcomes new member Barbara O'Connor.

Sheila Turnage's third Mo & Dale Mystery, The Odds of Getting Even, has two starred reviews (so far) from Kirkus and Booklist and a glowing thumbs up from SLJ. It's a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Scholastic Book Club book. The first in the series, Three Times Lucky, was a Newbery Honor book in 2013.

Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams has been cast to star in a movie adaptation of Carrie Ryan's Forest of Hands and Teeth.

Alan Gratz's The League of Seven is the winner of the 2015 SIBA Young Adult Book Award .

Carole Weatherford and Vanessa Brantley-Newton discussed "the importance of diverse characters and subjects, how to use books to talk with children about difficult social issues and the real gatekeeping and institutional challenges African Americans face in publishing" on PBS Video.

Highlights Hello magazine has honored Vanessa Brantley-Newton for her December 2014 issue cover illustration, which was named Cover of the Year by the editorial, art and production staff.

Eileen Heyes graduated from NCSU with a master's in English, with a concentration in British and American literature.

Illustrator Vanessa Brantley-Newton's The Hula-Hoopin' Queen, written by Thelma Lynne Godin, was named a Highly Commended title by the 2015 Charlotte Zolotow Committee.

WINC mourns the loss of our colleague Bonnie Christensen on January 12: Mahnaz Dar's obituary in School Library Journal.

Carole Weatherford's Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century, illustrated by Raúl Colón, has (so far) earned four starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklinks, and Shelf Awareness.

Read the latest 2014-2015 news about WINC's Joan Holub on her new WINC page.

Watch Allan Wolf's entertaining Poetry Palooza Promo here or on his WINC Page.

Clay Carmichael's Wild Things was published in Italian as Creature Selvatiche by San Paolo.

WINC-member Bank Street College Best Children's Books/2014: Dig, Scoop, Ka-boom! by Joan Holub , illus. by David Gordon; Mister and Lady Day: Billie Holiday and the Dog Who Loved Her by Amy Novesky, illus. by Vanessa Brantley-Newton and We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song by Debbie Levy, illus. by Vanessa Brantley-Newton; My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood by Tameka Fryer Brown, illus. by Shane W. Evans; Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz; and Brother, Brother by Clay Carmichael.

We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song written by Debbie Levy and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton has won a 2014 Jane Addams Children's Book Honor Award in the Books for Younger Children category.

WINC welcomes new members Megan Shepherd and Julie Fortenberry. Megan Shepherd's The Madman's Daughter won the 2014 NCSLMA YA Book Award.

Kelly Starling Lyons Hope's Gift, illustrated by Don Tate, and her Tea Cakes for Tosh, illustrated by Earl B. Lewis, have won 2014 Storytelling World Resource Awards.

Tameka Fryer Brown and Vanessa Brantley-Newton reading at Quail Ridge Books on 2/18/14.