OUR STAFF
KWAME ALEXANDER, FOUNDING DIRECTOR/SENIOR COACH
Poet, publisher, and producer, Kwame Alexander is the founder, president, and driving creative force behind the Book-in-a-Day program. During his twenty-year book publishing career, he published over 40 books, more than 100 authors, and was named one of the top ten independent publishers by Black Issues Book Review (1999). Dubbed a "phenom" in the poetry world by The Charleston (SC) City Paper, over the past fifteen years he has regularly performed poetry, conducted writing and publishing workshops, and delivered speeches at schools, theaters, and conferences throughout the country and abroad. Alexander has authored nine books including the best-selling Do The Write Thing: 7 Steps to Publishing Success, Tough Love: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur, and most recently his second young adult title, Crush: Love Poems. Alexander serves as producer of the annual Capital BookFest presented by The Washington Post. He has delivered presentations and keynote speeches on the power of poetry and publishing to various organizations, including the New York State English Teachers Council, The South Carolina Library Association Annual Conference, and the Virginia Association for Teachers of English Conference. The Kwame Alexander Papers, a collection of his writings, correspondence, and other professional documents is held at the George Washington University Gelman Library.
DEANNA NIKAIDO, COACH/DESIGN SPECIALIST
Deanna Nikaido is the author of Voice Like Water (Word of Mouth Press), and Vibrating With Silence, (Writers Lair Books). Voice Like Water was selected in the Small Press Bookwatch July 2009 by Midwest Book Review. Her poems have appeared in Manorborn Anthology Fall/Winter '09 (Abecedarian Books), Strange Attractors, Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters, Ltd.) Family Pictures: Poems & Photographs Celebrating Our Loved Ones (Capital Bookfest), Urbancode Magazine, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Fledgling Rag. She was a guest poet at the Visionary Art Museums 800th Birthday Celebration for Rumi in 2006. She has worked with elementary and high school students as well as with deaf and incarcerated youth. She is a graduate from Art Center College of Design Pasadena, CA with a degree in Illustration and currently resides in Baltimore, MD. For more information please visit her website at www.deannanikaido.com
TINESHA DAVIS, COACH
Having graduated Summa Cum Laude with dual degrees in Database Technology and Information Systems with an emphasis in programming, Tinesha authored two books that have nothing to do with engineering—a collection of poetry, All Black Girls Ain't Got Rhythm and other urban hymns, and a novel, Holler at the Moon. With these achievements she made it official: she is a writer who happens to play computer engineer by day. Tinesha serves on the Board of Directors of the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation and is a writing coach for Book-in-a-Day, She has spoken at high schools and colleges throughout the east coast and her works have appeared in a smattering of journals (online especially). Tinesha lives in the DC metropolitan area with her sixteen year old son.
