An Evening with James McBride

James McBride is the author of The New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, The Good Lord Bird, winner of the National Book Award, The Color of Water, Song Yet Sung, the story collection Five-Carat Soul, and the James Brown biography Kill ’Em and Leave. His debut novel, Miracle at St. Anna, was turned into a 2008 film. In 2016, McBride was awarded the National Humanities Medal. He is also a musician, a composer and a distinguished writer-in-residence at New York University. McBride’s most recent novel is The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

McBride has been a staff writer for The Boston Globe, People Magazine, and The Washington Post, and his work has appeared in Essence, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. His 2007 National Geographic story “Hip Hop Planet” is considered an important examination of African American music and culture.

A native New Yorker and a graduate of New York City public schools, McBride studied composition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and received his master’s degree at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. In 2015, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama “for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America.” He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

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