Biography

Nik­ki Grimes does not con­sid­er her­self a bona fide sto­ry­teller, but, as she told an audi­ence at the Library of Con­gress, she is hap­py to own the title Poet. Born and raised in New York City, Nik­ki began com­pos­ing verse at the age of six and has been writ­ing ever since that time.

A best­selling author and a pro­lif­ic artist, Nik­ki has writ­ten many award-win­ning books for chil­dren and young adults includ­ing the Coret­ta Scott King Award win­ner Bronx Mas­quer­ade; the Coret­ta Scott King Author Hon­or books Jazmin’s Note­book, Talkin’ About Bessie, Dark Sons, The Road to Paris, and Words with Wings; Horn Book Fan­fare for Talkin’ About Bessie; ALA Notable books What is Good­bye? and Words with Wings; the pop­u­lar Dya­monde Daniel chap­ter book series, and numer­ous pic­ture books and nov­els includ­ing The New York Times best­seller Barack Oba­ma: Son of Promise, Child of Hope and, most recent­ly, Gar­vey’s Choice, One Last Word: Wis­dom from the Harlem Renais­sance, and A Walk in the Woods.

In addi­tion to her work for chil­dren, Ms. Grimes has writ­ten arti­cles for such mag­a­zines as Essence, Today’s Chris­t­ian Woman, Book Links, and Image, Jour­nal of Arts & Reli­gion.

An accom­plished and wide­ly anthol­o­gized poet of both chil­dren’s and adult verse, Grimes has con­duct­ed poet­ry read­ings and lec­tures at inter­na­tion­al schools in Rus­sia, Chi­na, Swe­den and Tan­za­nia, while short-term mis­sion projects have tak­en her to such trou­ble spots as Haiti.

Dur­ing the 1970s, Nik­ki copro­duced and host­ed The Kid’s Show on WBAI FM in New York. Lat­er, dur­ing a six-year stint in Swe­den, she host­ed their radio pro­gram for immi­grants, Grun­slöst, and anoth­er for Swedish Edu­ca­tion­al Radio.