s best-selling books include ã ã a collaboration with abram hendry. please welcome jason reynolds. guest: thank you, thank you, thank you it s an honor to welcome everyone to the 71st national book awards. i m jason reynolds and i m coming to you live from washington dc. this is our night, i know there is so much going on in the world but this is still our night and it s a big deal. it s so much of a big deal but i woke up this morning anxious, nervous as usual, so i called my mother because i always call my mother when i m anxious. at 7:00 a.m., she answers the phone, she said uh oh i m calling to ask if you have advice for your child. she says what she always says when i make this call, let me ask you, what did i make you say every single night before you got in the bed when you were little boy? i said i don t want to do this ãbwhat did i make you say every single night before you got in the bed when you were a little boy? i said, you made me say, i can do anything.
encouraging people to take their seat good evening, everyone. i m the new executive director of the center for biography, which is celebrating its tenth year now all data shall be white at the foundation, and i want to advertise first of all our new alliance with bio. this is the first jointly sponsored event with them but also courtesy of will swift of the president we are also going to be doing a cosponsoring of their great annual conference on biography next may that will also be happening here. i also want to advertise and put out the word we have a decembe december 15 deadline for the new annual fellowship and there are four fellowships given out every year for aspiring biographers, so if you know anyone, please encourage them to apply. and finally, i am just thrilled that we are able to do this event to honor bob and i introduce now will swift and we will take it from there. [applause] those of you that don t know it stands for the biographers international organizati
[inaudible conversations] encouraging people to take their seats. good evening, everyone. my name is cia bird. i m in the new executive director of the leon leavy center for biography, which is celebrating the ten inch year now, all due to shelby white and the leon leave levery foundation, and i want to advertise our new alliance with bio, our first joint we sponsor the event with them and also curtsy of will swift here, of the president of bio, we have our also going to be doing cosponsoring their great annual conference on biography next way. that will also be happening here at cuny. should be a great event with over 200 biographers. also want to advertise i put out the word, we have a december 15th deadline for the new the annual fellowship, and there are four fellowships given out every year of $65,000 a pop. for aspiring biographers. so if you know anyone who is aspiring, encourage them to apply. i m really thrilled we re able to do this event to honor bob weil
if it were possible to have poor writer minicamp that speaks solely for himself and without being a writer himself he could speak to the language of writers better than any editor or publisher he would meet and he was always tactful in speaking with writers. i have to admit i pulled a fast one because it s not about or at least it was not written originally about bob weil, but it was written about the man who inspired him to begin an editor and i did not realize he had been inspired to maxwell perkins until he said that just now, but this was from scotts biography of max perkins and i kept having it sounded like it was a description of bob. in the essential attributes of the good editor, which max burton exemplifies i see bob as well and it s been one of the greatest privileges of my professional life for more than 10 years and more years to come because we have more books in the pipeline to be associated with bob and
so, again, encouraging people to take their seats. good evening, everyone. my name is kai bird, i m the new executive director of the leon levy center for biography which is celebrating its tenth year now all due to shelby white and the leon levy foundation. and i want to advertise, first of all, our new alliance with bio. this is our first sort of jointly-sponsored event with them, but we are also, courtesy of will swift here the president of bio, we are also going to be doing, cosponsoring their great annual conference on biography next may. and that will also be happening here at cuny. should be a great event with over 200 biographers. i also want to advertise and put out the word, we have a december 15th deadline for our new, our annual fellowship, and there are four fellowships given out every year of $65,000 a pop for aspiring biographers. so if you know of people who are aspiring, please encourage them to apply. and finally, i just, you know, i m really thrilled th