We are excited to host Kwame Alexander in conversation with Sarah Moriarty, Charleston Literary Festival’s Executive Director, for a Father’s Day eve celebration of his new book, Why Fathers Cry at Night! This is a free, in-store event but please send an email to reserve your spot – include your name and the number of your party – to rsvp@buxtonbooks.com.
About Why Fathers Cry at Night:
Millions of parents have welcomed beloved author Kwame Alexander into their homes as a trusted storyteller, with dozens of bestselling and award-winning books, and a new Disney Plus TV show, “The Crossover”, based on his Newbery-winning children’s novel, which he’s written and executive produced. Now, even more people will get to know and appreciate Kwame’s writing on a deeper and more personal level as he opens his heart in a powerfully intimate and non-traditional memoir, Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Letters, Recipes, and Remembrances, a soulful mashup of love poems, family recipes and heartfelt reminisces that will deeply resonate.
Kwame Alexander shares a moving self-portrait of a “growing man” learning how to love, stumbling along the way, but getting back up again. He takes us through stories of his parents: from being awkward newlyweds in the sticky Chicago summer of 1967, to the sometimes-confusing ways they showed their love for him, how he never saw them hold hands and how he yearned for affection from his minister father. He shares about his mother who taught him how to use his words to express himself and passed on the precious gift of storytelling. He explores his own relationships—the exhilaration and the precariousness of being a newly wedded, 22-year-old father, his hard-scrabble younger years as an artist when he worked in a DC jazz club with his first wife. We see him in sacred moments by his mother’s bedside before she passes and how he attempts to deal with his grief, compounded after his marriage ends. He finds solace in learning how to cook for the first time and perfecting her delicious recipes: picnic fried chicken, 7Up pound cake and more. Kwame weaves together glimmering memories of his past in this kaleidoscopic scrapbook as he tries to understand his two greatest loves—his daughters—and how to fully love himself.
Why Fathers Cry at Night will inspire bravery and vulnerability in every reader who has experienced the reckless passion, heartbreak, failure, and joy that define the unpredictable whirlwind of love. Kwame reminds us that love and loss are so often intertwined, and that giving love is the greatest journey of our lives.
About Kwame Alexander:
Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, producer and #1 New York Times bestselling author of 39 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night, An American Story, The Door of No Return, Becoming Muhammad Ali (co-authored with James Patterson), Rebound, which was shortlisted for the prestigious UK Carnegie Medal, and The Undefeated, the National Book Award nominee, Newbery Honor, and Caldecott Medal-winning picture book illustrated by Kadir Nelson.
A regular contributor to NPR's Morning Edition, Kwame is the recipient of numerous awards, including The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, The Coretta Scott King Author Honor, Three NAACP Image Award Nominations, and the 2017 Inaugural Pat Conroy Legacy Award. In 2018, he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana, as a part of LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy program he co-founded. In January 2023, a Kennedy Center-commissioned national tour for young audiences began for Alexander’s musical Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie: Starring Indigo Blume, which is based on two of his beloved children’s books, Acoustic Rooster and Indigo Blume.
He is the Executive Producer, Showrunner, and Writer of The Crossover TV series, based on his Newbery-Medal winning novel of the same name, which premiered on Disney+ in April 2023.
About Sarah Moriarty:
Sarah, who previously held the position of Director of Marketing for the Festival, is a branding specialist and marketing creative. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin, where she earned a BA in Literature, and Freie Universität Berlin, where she received an MA in the same field. Sarah's interests include modern Irish Drama, literature in exile, and the writings of Samuel Beckett. Before her move from Berlin to Charleston in October 2021, she was the Global Director of Brand at Blinkist, a company in the audiobook publishing industry that blended her love of literature with her career.