Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds is an author of books for young people who was born in Washington, DC, grew up in nearby Oxon Hill, Maryland, and lives in Washington. He served as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature from 2020 to 2022 and teaches in the Writing for Young People MFA program at Lesley University.

His first novel, When I Was the Greatest (2014), won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Since then he has written across forms, from the Track series that began with Ghost (2016), a National Book Award finalist, to Long Way Down (2017), a novel in verse that received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor and a Coretta Scott King Author Honor and won the Edgar Award for best young adult novel. Look Both Ways (2019) was also a National Book Award finalist, and Twenty-Four Seconds from Now... won the 2025 Coretta Scott King Author Award.

He has also written picture books, including There Was a Party for Langston, and collaborated with the artist Jason Griffin on Ain't Burned All the Bright, both Caldecott Honor books.