Alicia D. Williams Award-winning author, teacher, and lover of chunky guacamole and good stories!

Alicia D. Williams is the author of Genesis Begins Again, which received the Newbery and Kirkus Prize honors, was a William C. Morris Award finalist, and won the Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Genesis Begins Again is a deeply sensitive and compelling novel that tells the story of a thirteen-year-old who must overcome internalized racism and a verbally abusive family to finally learn to love herself. Williams also debuted a picture book biography, Jump at the Sun: The True Life Tale of Unstoppable Storycatcher Zora Neale Hurston. She shares a passion for storytelling which stems from conducting school residencies as a Master Teaching Artist of arts-integration.

Williams graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. She’s performed in commercials, off-off Broadway, and even children’s theater. A graduate of the MFA program at Hamline University, she is also an oral storyteller in the African American tradition. Williams infuses her love for drama, movement, and storytelling to inspire students to write.

In her presentations and keynotes, Williams discusses preferential colorism, and what the true definition of beauty is. She touches on why representation in kid-lit matters, and the power of Black stories and storytelling. Her forthcoming book, Shirley Chisholm Dared, the story of the first Black woman in Congress, is set to be released this June. She is the proud mother of a brilliant college student, and is a teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina.