Jason Reynolds sits on the rooftop of his DC home, overlooking the warm sunset, telling me stories of his late father riding motorcycles, and says, “Build your archive.” He wears all black and hobbles up the winding staircase carrying a smooth bottle of water. He does not walk fast. Everything is measured. Meaningful. He moves as if the world is indeed sacred. Not too fast. Not too slow. Present, motioning his hands toward the sky and then back down into his lap.

Years later, building an archive of my own in my home in Georgia has become my latest obsession.

Collecting old strippings of magazines, old written letters, old pictures, old books, old newspaper clippings, old awards, putting them on a desk and attempting to make a living collage of human creativity. The room has become a museum of sorts; small, blue. In it is every touch of my imagination, a beautiful and complex exhibition of my interior art and yearning. On the desk, an April 19, 1968, copy of LIFE magazine lies alone, collecting time and dust. The woman’s face on the cover is solemn, forward, and sad.

My hand reaches over my left shoulder to grab an artifact: a small award from my youth for reading. I was ten years old: young, vibrant, unsure, and determined. For Black boys of South Carolina where I grew up, it was video games, sports, and reading — no in between. Then there are the obituaries. The people in them are dead, having once been alive, having once loved, having once remembered everything and then not, having once fought in wars and scored touchdowns and written poems and touched the unseen world. It is no small thing to be alive, and then dead, and then remembered and cherished.

When I think of this room, as I sit ­staring out of the window of my office at the passing cars, I think of Jason ­Reynolds. This room is a kind of homage to him, I like to say; an honoring of the advice he gave me some years ago. And for two years, this room has become just that: a place where, when I’m gone, all who enter will know the record of love and curiosity that I left behind. Before that moment on the roof, Jason took me into a room where he opened a big, blue chest. It was filled with the things of the past. On the wall was a pair of jeans framed. “Got to remind yourself where you come from,” he says, smiling.

As he grabs the pages of old manuscripts with years-old ink, filled with handwritten notes (he tells me to print every draft…and save them), flipping through them, his tattoos showing on the dark side of his hand, he says, “I keep everything.” He is telling the truth. He takes this seriously — as serious as his focus and laughter. As we sit on the roof, I am doing the usual: complaining about life and writing, figuring things out. He never tells me what to do, never tells me where to turn, never tells me how to choose, never even tells me how to write. “What your gut say?” he asks.

And I know. Or I don’t. And then I do. And then I figure it out.

Why do I tell you this?

Because Jason’s work doesn’t provide answers. At least not in the way that we usually learn them from those who say they have all the answers. His books (and there are many) thrust you into a world in which real people in real places find a way to live their one wild, miraculous life — not to mention quirky, brave, diverse, with agency, spark, and their own magical idiosyncrasies.

Jason does not write boring books. Be it All American Boys; The Boy in the Black Suit; As Brave as You; Ghost (my favorite!); For Every One (another favorite!); Long Way Down; Miles Morales: Suspended, a Spiderman Novel; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain’t Burned All the Bright; or one of the many, many others, his work is layered with love, creativity, and curiosity. Jason also doesn’t live a boring life. He is a collector of human stories. A cheerleader for teachers and librarians. A former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, sure, but much more: an ambassador for the art and power of narrative and its ability to see and change the world.

He takes the lives of young people seriously. As seriously as he takes his own becoming. As seriously as he reads and approaches the craft, finding creative and new ways to tell stories again and again. And when you speak of craft —­ honoring it, demanding more of it, risking it, remembering it, forgetting it — Jason does this with maturity and humility. His characters are real, ordinary, and complex. They have to make choices, and choices are made for them. Their worlds are real — as real as our own — and it is not safe, and they must find a way, separately and together, failing, winning, wishing, learning, dreaming, hurting, and most of all, doing every one of these dramatic and daring acts together. There are no easy answers. No shortcuts. So many do-overs. So many second chances. An expansive and compelling painting of what each of us wants for ourselves.

I am a preacher, a lover of the written and spoken word, the ways it lands on the ears and crawls into the body, touching every crevice of our human complexity. There is a word in my religion that puts the soul back together when everything seems to be falling apart: grace. And if there is any word that describes the narrative arc of Jason’s work, the trajectory of how his stories unfold, it is grace. And in a world that believes so little in young people and so much in punishment and erasure, grace is not just spiritual — it is necessary, a key ingredient in the script of our lives together, a glue and garden for broken and wandering hearts.

Twenty-Four Seconds from Now… is just that and without question deserves to win the Coretta Scott King Author Award. Yeah, young Neon is just like us, and Jason knows it. He’s dealing with the pressure. He’s wanting to be tender. He’s in love. He desires intimacy and humanity. Jason knows that we also need guidance, help even, to tackle it, the thing we don’t talk about but talk about…all the time. And he tackles it well, page after page, until by the end, we are not just given more of love and honesty, we are given more of ourselves.

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

* * *

Danté and Jason. Photo: Adedayo "Dayo" Kosoko.

In 2019, Jason and I meet through an essay. I read Ghost. I cry. I run five miles. Krista Tippett asks me if I have a guest in mind for On Being, her public radio show. Jason, of course! They meet. They talk. They then talk about me. I’m shook. I cry. I write. Pandemic hits. We talk. We grieve. 2021. I become an author: Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle. On the back, Jason says: “This is a baptismal pool.” I cry. I drive to DC. 2023. Jason has a photoshoot. I’m here. He’s there. We’re there. “Man, get in front the lens,” he says. I do. He does. We do. “Aye, big bruh,” I say. “This mad uncomfortable.” He puts his arm on my shoulder. We snap a pic together. I laugh. “Danté Stewart…young brother…I’m proud of him,” he says. I move, awkwardly. I tell him I won’t post it. Till we do something together. Till some time has passed. Time passes. He writes. I write. I run twelve hundred miles. He runs around the country telling everyone: I’m proud of you! 2025. He calls me. I pick up. I’m writing. He’s writing. He’s running. I’m running. “I want you to write something,” he says. “I got you,” I say. I write. In an email, they say: if you have a picture of the both of you together, send it. I stare. I write. I run. I pray. I cry. To my left: LIFE magazine, Coretta’s solemn eyes, old coffee, old letters, old notes, old books, old awards, old news, old hugs, old friends, old tears.

And in a world where so many tears are cried and so many friendships are formed, and so many of us feel like children, where we feel so fragile, so full of spark, ­trepidation, silliness, and wisdom, we need more Jasons in the world. More love stories. More floors to ascend and descend. More streets to run down. More buildings to leap from. The never-ending changes in relationships. Side-quests and big dreams. Lonely tracks and determined classrooms. Verse. Prose. Drama. ­Character. Action. Surprise. Twist. Young. Old. Ready. Set. Go. No time to waste, you get many chances, but one life: write it.

Congratulations, Jason. I love you, champ — STET.

From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Special Issue: ALA Awards. For more speeches, profiles, and articles, click the tag ALA 2025.

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