Kekla Magoon on writing 'to make the world a better place'

Vermont author Kekla Magoon has been going where few children’s authors dare to go, tackling topics such as racism and social justice in her books. She is now being recognized as one of America’s top writers for young adults.Magoon was a finalist for this year’s National Book Award, one of the world’s most prestigious literary prizes, for her new book for young adults, Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People.It is a magisterial 400-page work that explores black resistance starting with colonialism in Africa and leading up to the Black Panthers and the Black Lives Matter movement.Magoon, who is on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, said that her new book “carries the weight of history and it carries the power to inspire young people to say, ‘Oh I see myself in this and I’m going to use my voice.’”Earlier this year, Magoon received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for “her significant and lasting contribution to writing for teens.” This is essentially a lifetime achievement award that Magoon won at the age of 41. The ALA proclaimed, “Kekla Magoon’s powerful prose and complex characters enrich literature for young adults by bearing witness to the trauma and triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement.” Magoon’s other books include X, a teen novel about civil rights leader Malcolm X that she co-authored with his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz, and How it Went Down, about the complicated aftermath of a shooting of a Black teenager. Magoon is also a recipient of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, John Steptoe New Talent Award, NAACP Image Award and other honors.Magoon told the Vermont Conversation that her writing “is a powerful opportunity to be telling Black history as a Black woman in this country. It’s part of what I value in the world. I want to be an activist. But I’m not the person who marches and protests. I’m really good at writing. So I choose to use the skills that I have to advance the …causes that I believe in.”Magoon is determined “to push back against everyone who wants to diminish young Black people. Because there are a lot of people out there that don’t want us to recognize and own our power, that don’t want us to have a space and a voice in the world. So the best thing I can do is to model the ability to do both of those things.”“I try to use my writing skills to make the world a better place.”