Loyalty is super psyched to celebrate Black Boy Joy with editor Kwame Mbalia and contributors Jay Coles, Lamar Giles, Julian Randall, and Jason Reynolds! This is an incredible book and we can't wait for y'all to experience the magic of BLACK BOY JOY!! This event is free to attend and will be held digitally via Crowdcast. Click here to register for the event. You can also order a copy of Black Boy Joy below to be automatically added to the registration list, and there will be an option to snag the book during the event.

Celebrate the joys of Black boyhood with stories from seventeen bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors--including Jason Reynolds (the Track series), Jerry Craft (New Kid), and Kwame Mbalia (the Tristan Strong series)!

Black boy joy is…

Picking out a fresh first-day-of-school outfit.
Saving the universe in an epic intergalactic race.
Finding your voice—and your rhymes—during tough times.
Flying on your skateboard like nobody’s watching.

And more! From seventeen acclaimed Black male and non-binary authors comes a vibrant collection of stories, comics, and poems about the power of joy and the wonders of Black boyhood.

Contributors include: B. B. Alston, Dean Atta, P. Djèlí Clark, Jay Coles, Jerry Craft, Lamar Giles, Don P. Hooper, George M. Johnson, Varian Johnson, Kwame Mbalia, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Tochi Onyebuchi, Julian Randall, Jason Reynolds, Justin Reynolds, DaVaun Sanders, and Julian Winters

KWAME MBALIA is a husband, father, New York Times bestselling author, and former pharmaceutical metrologist, in that order. His debut middle-grade novel, TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY, and the sequel, TRISTAN STRONG DESTROYS THE WORLD (October 6, 2020), are published by Rick Riordan Presents/Disney-Hyperion. A Howard University graduate and a Midwesterner now in North Carolina, he survives on dad jokes and Cheez-Its.

JAY COLES is the author of critically acclaimed TYLER JOHNSON WAS HERE, a composer with ASCAP, and a professional musician residing in Muncie, Indiana. He is a graduate of Vincennes University and Ball State University and holds degrees in English and Liberal Arts. When he’s not writing diverse books, he’s advocating for them, and composing music for various music publishers. Jay’s forthcoming novel THINGS WE COULDN’T SAY is set to be released this fall with Scholastic.

LAMAR GILES writes for teens and adults across multiple genres, with work appearing on numerous Best Of lists every year. He is the author of the acclaimed novels Fake ID, Endangered, Overturned, Spin, The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, Not So Pure and Simple, and The Last Mirror on the Left, as well as numerous pieces of short fiction. He is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books and resides in Virginia with
his wife.

JULIAN RANDALL is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. A recipient of multiple fellowships, Julian is the winner of a Pushcart Prize. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Ole Miss. Julian is the author of Refuse (Pitt, 2018), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award, Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa (Holt Books for Young Readers, Winter 2022). He can be found at @JulianThePoet and on his website JulianDavidRandall.com.

JASON REYNOLDS is an award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author. Jason’s many books include Miles Morales: Spider Man, the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu), Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Correta Scott King Honor, and Look Both Ways, which was a National Book Award Finalist. His latest book, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, is a collaboration with Ibram X. Kendi. Jason is the 2020-2021 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and has appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and CBS This Morning. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program and lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

Please note Loyalty has a zero tolerance policy for harassment or intimidation of any kind during this virtual event.

BLACK BOY JOY celebration w/ Kwame Mbalia, Jay Coles, Lamar Giles, Julian Randall, and Jason Reynolds!