Jacqueline Woodson
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Women You Need to Know

Jacqueline Woodson

Past Event: Tuesday, April 12, 2016

At Town Hall Seattle—The Great Hall

Seattle Arts & Lectures and Hedgebrook Present WYNK Sponsored by Women's Funding Alliance.

I used to say I’d be a teacher or a lawyer or a hairdresser when I grew up but even as I said these things, I knew what made me happiest was writing.

— Jacqueline Woodson

I wanted to write about communities that were familiar to me and people that were familiar to me. I wanted to write about communities of color. I wanted to write about girls. I wanted to write about friendship and all of these things that I felt like were missing in a lot of the books that I read as a child.

— Jacqueline Woodson

Such care is reflected in the way Woodson speaks: slowly and thoughtfully, and from a place of deep reflection about the culture she is in.

— Michelle Dean

Jacqueline Woodson’s most recent book, Brown Girl Dreaming, has earned her the 2014 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. She has won numerous other awards including three Newbery Honors, a Coretta Scott King Award and three Coretta Scott King Honors, a Margaret A. Edwards Award and an ALAN Award — both for Lifetime Achievement in YA Literature.

When Woodson started writing, she wrote on “everything…on paper bags and [her] shoes and denim binders. [She] chalked stories across sidewalks and penciled tiny tales in notebook margins. [She] loved and still love[d] watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories” [Woodson]. She has channeled that love onto the pages of almost two dozen-books, spanning from novels and poetry to picture books for children and young adults. She has been awarded the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation, a two year tenure which aims to raise awareness that young people have a natural receptivity to poetry and are its most appreciative audience, especially when poems are written specifically for them.

Jacqueline Woodson split her youth between South Carolina and Brooklyn. She attended Howard University, where she studied drama, and earned her B.A. in English from Adelphi University. She lives with her partner and two children in Brooklyn, New York.

Selections of poetry from Brown Girl Dreaming:

HOW TO LISTEN #7

Even the silence
 has a story to tell you.
Just listen.
Listen.

READING

I am not my sister.
Words from the books curl around each other
make little sense
until
I read them again
and again, the story
settling into memory. Too slow
the teacher says.
Read faster.
Too babyish, the teacher says.
Read older.
But I don’t want to read faster or older or
any way else that might
make the story disappear too quickly
from where it’s settling
inside my brain,
slowly becoming
a part of me.
A story I will remember
long after I’ve read it for the second,
third, tenth,
hundredth time.

Selected Works:

Young Adult Books
Beneath a Meth Moon (2012)
Behind You (2004) – Winner of numerous awards including the 2005 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, the New York Public Library Best Book for Teens 2005, and the ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Hush (2002) – National Book Award Finalist and winner of numerous awards including the 2003 ALA Best Book for Young Adults and the 2003 New York Public Libraries Books for the Teen Age
Miracle’s Boys (2000) – Winner of numerous awards including the Coretta Scott King Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the ALA Best Book for Young Adults
If You Come Softly (1998) – Winner of the ALA Best Book for Young Adults and 2001 Detroit Public Library Author’s Day Award

Middle Grade Books
Brown Girl Dreaming (2014) – Winner of the 2014 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the 2015 John Newbery Medal, and the 2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens
Peach Locomotion (2009) – Winner of numerous awards including the Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award, the Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards, and the Keystone to Reading Book Award
Feathers (2007) – Winner of the Newbery Honor Medal
Locomotion (2003) – National Book Award Finalist and winner of numerous awards including the 2003 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction Honor, the 2004 IRA-CBC Children’s Choice, and the School Library Journal Best Book
After Tupac and D Foster (2008) – Winner of the Newbery Honor Medal and the 2009 Josette Frank Award

Picture Books
This is the Rope (2013)
Each Kindness (2012) – Receiver of the Coretta Scott King Honor and winner of the 2013 Jane Addams Peace Award, the 2013 Charlotte Zolotow Award, and the Best Book of 2012 from the School Library Journal
Pecan Pie Baby (2010)
Show Way (2005) – Winner of the Newbery Honor Medal
Coming On Home Soon (2004) – Winner of the Caldecott Honor, the 2005 ALA Notable, the Booklist Editor’s Choice, and the Child Magazine Best of 2004
Visiting Day (2002) – Winner of the 2003 Skipping Stones Honor Award
The Other Side (2001) – Winner of numerous awards including the Riverbank Review Children’s Book of Distinction, the School Library Journal Best Book, the ALA Notable, and the IRA Teacher’s Choices 2002
We Had a Picnic This Sunday Past (1997)

Links

Jacqueline Woodson’s homepage
Jacqueline Woodson on weaving memory, crafting poetry, and writing for young adults
NPR: Jacqueline Woodson On Growing Up, Coming Out And Saying Hi To Strangers
Reading Rockets: The Basics
2014 National Book Award Winner, Young People’s Literature
Jacqueline Woodson: ‘I don’t want anyone to feel invisible’

Event Details

Town Hall Seattle—The Great Hall

1119 8th Ave
Seattle, WA 98101

View directions.

Transportation & Parking

Town Hall Seattle is centrally located at 1119 8th Ave, on the corner of 8th and Seneca. Their venue is served by frequent bus routes, is near access to light rail stations, and close to a number of parking options nearby. Please see their website for more details.

Accessibility

Open Captioning is an option for people who have hearing losses, where a captioning screen displaying the words that are spoken or sung is placed on stage. To make a request for open captioning, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10. Please note: for in-person events at Town Hall Seattle, we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure captioning services. 

Closed Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where captioning displays the words that are spoken or sung at the bottom of the video for online events. Captioning is available for all online events; click the “CC” button to view captions during the event.

Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are devices that people with hearing loss use in conjunction with their hearing device (hearing aids or cochlear implants). Town Hall Seattle has a hearing loop system, so you can switch your T-coil hearing aid to telecoil to have the stage’s microphones transmitted directly to your hearing aids. To pick up a headset, check in with any Town Hall usher when you arrive.

Sign Language Interpretation is available upon request for Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals. To make a request for interpretation, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Sign Language Interpretation” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process and we will contact you to confirm details. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation.

Wheelchair Accessible Seating and Accessible Restrooms are available in all sections at Town Hall Seattle, which is fully accessible to ticket holders with physical mobility concerns. Town Hall Seattle recommends that visitors use the 8th Avenue Entrance for events in the Great Hall, and elevators with Braille signage go to all levels within the Hall. The venue has all-gender, ADA-accessible restrooms on the lobby and Forum level. To reserve seating for a specific mobility concern, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Wheelchair Accessible or Alternative Seating Options” during ticket checkout, and we will contact you to confirm details. For more details on accessibility features at Town Hall, click here.

Guide and service dogs are welcome.

All-gender restrooms are available.

We are pleased to offer these accessibility services at our venues, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders. Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. Our Patron Services Manager is available at boxoffice@lectures.org, or Tuesday-Friday, from 12 noon–5 p.m., at 206.621.2230×10.

For more accessibility information, please head to lectures.org/accessibility. If you would like to make accessibility arrangements you do not see listed here, please contact our box office or select “Other Accommodations” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process, and we will contact you to confirm details.

Seating Chart