Campus Drive: Podcast Transcripts
Books in Bloom: The Authors' Panel
Monday, September 14, 2026Intro
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RYAN RECORD:
Welcome to Campus Drive, your one-way street to all things HCC. This is the podcast where we explore the culture, creativity, and conversations shaping life here at HCC and throughout the Howard County Community. Today, we're doing a little time traveling and rolling back the odometer to May, when the Dragon Podcast crew headed to one of HoCo's premiere literary events.
Books in Bloom at Color Burst Park. Our incredible interns and volunteers help host a Podcast In A Minute workshop, teaching the ins and outs of podcast creation and sharing the mic with folks of all ages and backgrounds. However, this episode isn't about our workshop. Instead, we're bringing you a front-row seat to a must hear discussion featuring three brilliant local artists who are reshaping contemporary literature. So buckle up, settle in, and enjoy this presentation of the Books in Bloom: Authors’ panel.
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JASON REYNOLDS:
I think for me, it's weird. I'm in a weird space, and I'm looking for all these hobbies and trying to find new things to-- I know I'm going to hear about this later, trying to find new things to do. So I started running. And this really was a doctor's order, actually. My doctor was like, hey, man, you got to work on your heart stuff, your heart health, because life is real. Stress is real, right? And so for the last two months, I've just been running.
ALEXA:
How are your knees?
JASON REYNOLDS:
Good.
ALEXA:
Good.
JASON REYNOLDS:
Good, good, good, good, good. Well, before--
ALEXA:
No reason. I'm just curious.
JASON REYNOLDS:
Well, before running, I'm super particular about how I take care of myself. So my body is fine. It's just about my heart. And the first month was terrible. What a terrible thing.
ALEXA:
Yeah, but in a beautiful way.
JASON REYNOLDS:
In a beautiful-- the difficulty is what is bringing me so much joy.
ALEXA:
Exactly.
JASON REYNOLDS:
And so over the last month, though, you get over the hump. You get over that threshold. And now my body's adjusting, and I'm enjoying it. And it's freeing my mind. I can't explain it. People who run, I understand now. Like, oh, this is why everybody is doing it. It's been a really incredible--
ALEXA:
Are you craving it yet?
JASON REYNOLDS:
Right after this, I'm going to go--
ALEXA:
Really?
JASON REYNOLDS:
Yeah.
ALEXA:
Oh, period.
JASON REYNOLDS:
It's an interesting thing that happens to you.
ALEXA:
Yeah.
JASON REYNOLDS:
And so it's been great. So that's bringing me a lot of joy. What about you, Sas?
SASA AAKIL:
If y'all couldn't tell, Alexa is also a runner. I just wanted to put that out there in case you're curious about her follow-up question.
ALEXA:
Yeah.
SASA AAKIL:
But for me, my new baby nephew. My brother, who lives in Houston, and his wife had a baby, their second baby. And he's just like this little squish ball. And I'm going to go meet him later this month. And so I'm really excited just getting baby photos and feeling hope and joy at the face of this little bundle of potential. And so that's been really nice. And then I'll just say secondly, because this is always my thing, my studio practice. I'm a ceramic artist, being in the studio with clay. Clay is very grounding. And so it just brings me a lot of peace.
ALEXA:
Yeah, I love that. Thank you. I also-- I love that you called your nephew a bundle of potential, because I think we're going to talk a lot about potential and possibility today. And I feel like at Shout Mouse, one of the things we come across a lot is a whole bunch of young people, young people of color in particular, who say that they never thought that they could be an author because they never knew it was a possibility for them. And so my first question for you all is, is when did you know that it was possible for you to be a professional writer, a professional author?
JASON REYNOLDS:
Me? Oh. So there is a moment in my life, but I'm curious. Do you remember?
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
I feel like I've been writing forever. So it was a given. And when I was in middle school and high school, people asked me what I was going to be when I grew up. And it was at least seven things. I was going to be a singer, an actress, a director, a dancer. And so writer was always different variations of writing. So yeah.
SASA AAKIL:
For me, I don't know that I can say it was a specific moment because I think I grew up with a great blessing, a great privilege in that I was home-schooled. And my teacher was my mom, who was also an educator. And so there were so many paths that I always knew were open to me simply because of the confidence that she had in me. And so I don't know if there was a moment where I was like, I can be a writer.
I know that there was a moment when I read poetry, and I was like, oh my God, I love this. And I know there was a moment when I wrote poetry, and I was like, oh my God, I love this. But I don't know, I think my mom always used to say, I believe that-- she's so funny. She's like, I believe I've given you the tools to do whatever you want and be successful at anything you try. And I was like, you're right.
ALEXA:
OK, mom.
SASA AAKIL:
Yeah, you right.
JASON REYNOLDS:
That's like a pressure because if you don't do well, it's like it's on you, ma.
[laughter]
You didn't give me the right tools, fam.
[laughter]
I was 16 years old. I remember very specifically the three things that happened during my 16th year of life that made it very clear for me. The first is so at that time, this is like '98, '99, Washington DC, U Street was sort of buzzing with all the poets, all the artists. Between 9th and 16th Street, this is where all of us were hanging out. I was hanging out there, and they're like 14, 15. And everybody's like, little bro, right?
And when you're around Derrick and all of them are down there, they all have books, right? Because they just hustling their wares. They're trying to figure out how to make $5, $6 off the night. You show up at the open mic. You do your poem, and then you're like, I got these books for sale. And I had never seen anybody that I could put my hands on who had made a book, because if you didn't read books growing up, it almost felt like books were made by robots and machines. You couldn't imagine that somebody was writing this stuff, right?
And so that was the first thing. Later that year, my cousin, whose daughter went to Georgetown Day School, which is one of those fancy schools, called me and said that her daughter didn't want to go to this special event. And she wanted me to go with her instead. And I was like, OK, where are we going? We got to go to the school for some lecture. And I'm like, I don't know if I want to go either. And it ended up being Maya Angelou.
ALEXA:
Wow.
JASON REYNOLDS:
And it was weird because it was the first time-- at the time, uptown where their school is located, they suspended yellow curbs for the night. So you could park-- it was the wildest. Maya Angelou came to town, and it was like, you can park on a yellow curb. The laws don't matter.
ALEXA:
When Maya's in town.
JASON REYNOLDS:
Right, Maya's in town. Laws don't matter in Georgetown.
[laughter]
It was crazy, right? And so I go, and I sit in the front row, and I remember Maya Angelou coming out on stage. And it was the first time that I felt backdraft. Felt like-- we talk about, oh, man, this person came in. They just got a thing. Maya Angelou, you could feel yourself being pushed back in the seat when she stepped on stage. It was the strangest experience.
And she told her story. It was an hour. She's crying on stage, reminiscing about her childhood and talking about her son. And then I left there, and I started to call her. Back then you could get everybody phone number from the phone book.
[laughter]
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
Oh, so she didn't give it to you.
JASON REYNOLDS:
No, no, no. I went in for the phone. And at the time, she was working at somewhere in Winston-Salem. And I'm calling her phone, her office phone every day. How're you doing, Ms. Angelo? My name is Jason Reynolds, and I think I'm working really hard. And I just want you-- if you could read this work for me, I think you would really see what I'm trying to do. Because when you're 16, you're clearly a genius, right?
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
Yeah.
SASA AAKIL:
Obviously.
JASON REYNOLDS:
But it became so real just to see her.
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
Was it poetry you were writing?
JASON REYNOLDS:
It was poetry at the time. Just to see her was enough.
ALEXA:
Yeah.
SASA AAKIL:
That's wild.
ALEXA:
Wow, I love that. And I'm a huge believer in poet supremacy. I will say [LAUGHS] that all of us on this stage are poets or have started off as poets. I think one of the things that's really funny about y'all's answers is that there is a thing when you are a poet, when you're like, even if I don't see it as possible, I will write it into being like, there is no other choice. I do this. This is who I am. Therefore, now, it is what I do.
Even when you're talking about I wanted to be seven different things, I think poets are really great shapeshifters. And they can fit themselves into many different things, which is beautiful. And I think that DC in particular is a beautiful place to be a poet. A beautiful place to be an artist in general. I think a lot of times we are overshadowed by just like the political noise. But I think DC in particular has a way of making a writer a writer. And so I'm curious about how DC has provided that space to you. How has it rubbed itself off on your work?
SASA AAKIL:
Ooh, this is such a good question.
ALEXA:
Thank you so much. I made it myself.
[laughter]
Never mind.
SASA AAKIL:
No. I love this question, because I write all the time and I run an open mic, and I'm constantly doing this like poetry hustle. And people ask me like, oh, where did you study, or what did you study in college? And I'm like, actually, it wasn't poetry. I got my poetic education from the city of DC, from the DC poets community. And I love being able to say that because when I go into spaces and my work is held up beside people who, for example, have BFAs in poetry or who have been writing for years, and I'm like, you know what? My work holds up because of my teachers.
And so I really, really love that fact. I say that I grew up on the Red Line because I live and was raised in Silver Spring. But I spent all my time riding the train to St. Stephen's Church in Columbia Heights and Howard University, where I studied ceramics. And I got to learn from people like Raquel Ra Brown and Brandon Johnson and Sami Miranda and so many amazing poets who are just in the city writing poetry and challenging you to be better. And so, yeah, definitely.
ALEXA:
And that's what I like to call the people's MFA, where you are learning from the people and reading, I mean, that counts for something for sure.
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
In case it wasn't obvious, I'm the old head on the stand, right? And so as I was listening to you and when he looked at me and he was mentioning poet Derrick Weston Brown and Alan King, and so even--
JASON REYNOLDS:
Fred Joyner.
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
Fred Joyner, just bought his book. And Fred Joyner has been a staple in DC and just released his debut. It's a poetry book, but it has visual art in it. And he's just an intellect. A very long time ago, I was part of a series interviewed by him before I even realized that I was a poet. I was still identifying primarily as a playwright. But when you were talking about 1998, when you were a young person, so I was in graduate school coming down to Mango's, Bar Nun--
JASON REYNOLDS:
Kaffa House.
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
Kaffa House. I won some money at Kaffa House. I was sharing my poems, still not identifying as a poet, because it took a while for me to realize that, as you say, poetry is through everything that I do. Even my first play that I produced, there was a poet character. And so I was born in DC. I was raised in Montgomery County and Prince George's County. I'm so old that I was in fifth grade with Dave Chappelle.
ALEXA:
Oh!
[laughter]
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
Yeah, I heard some, oh, no.
[laughter]
But I say all of that that DC was basically the landscape in which I grew as an artist, as a creative. And so that's when I say I was going to be seven things. It's because there was no limit to the possibility or the potential of who I can be. And I was always encouraged, particularly when I was in school in Silver Spring, Montgomery County, just encouraged to be anything, and there was no limit to that.
And so I homeschooled my daughter. When I hear-- I didn't know you were a homeschool baby. That is one of the things with homeschooling is that I was able to provide for my daughter space to be her best self, because sometimes those spaces don't exist for Black and Brown children. And so I have recently, and going back to your initial question about joy, at 52, that is what I am trying to recapture for myself. And so just full circle, answering all the questions while I got the mic.
JASON REYNOLDS:
Let's go. I mean, for me, I think two things come to mind. Number 1, I felt very fortunate. To be a young person who got to see that this was possible because the art world back then in DC was, and still is, so communal and very much like they used to give me special wristbands so that I didn't go to the bar. It was like, hey, you can come in, but you have to give you this wristband so that we can watch you. And I would sit in the back and I would watch all these people.
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
They will let you in Bar Nun?
JASON REYNOLDS:
They would let me in Bar Nun. But Tariq, you remember Tariq who used to-- they would let me in Bar Nun, and they would give me a special band. And I would sit in the back and wait my turn, usually at the end of the night when everybody's gone. And I remember the sound poets and all of this like-- and it was an amazing. I feel very lucky to have been a part of that time as a very young person, because it let me know what I was capable of.
And it put me in a position much like how you were saying. It put me in position to be around people who were better than me and who had been working harder than me or working longer than I have been. And so by the time I was around people my own age who hadn't had the same experiences, the level I'm on is going to be a little different, right?
And then because I'm from this area and I started moving around and I'm in New York, I'm in Philadelphia, I'm in Charlotte and Richmond as a teenager moving up and down the coast, you start realizing that even though I knew that all the best poets was in DC, nobody was talking about it that way. So there's this chip on everybody's shoulder where you're like, you know what? Now, I got to make everybody a believer. Now I gotta make y'all pay for sleeping on the best of us, which happens to be in this 10 by 10 square. And that's how I really felt about it.
ALEXA:
Yeah. Y'all should also check out Brian Gilmore's anthology that he just published on the history--
JASON REYNOLDS:
Shout out to the OG of all--
ALEXA:
Truly.
JASON REYNOLDS:
--OGs, E. Ethelbert Miller, who we don't talk about enough in that city for sure.
ALEXA:
Yeah.
JASON REYNOLDS:
And Gil Scott-Heron, who was there.
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
Yes.
JASON REYNOLDS:
Who was there toward the last part of his life.
ALEXA:
Yeah, I mean, you begin to see authorship as a hustle and grind, which really, I think, helps shape you as a person who can make a living on your art. Switching gears a little bit, Sasa, you are a co-author and a co-editor at Shout Mouse Press. I met you when you were like, I don't know, 15 or something.
SASA AAKIL:
Yeah.
ALEXA:
And in your most recent project with Shout Mouse, you're a co-editor on this 10-year anthology that we have called Bright Before Us, I think appropriately named after a wonderful Langston Hughes poem, Youth. And it just celebrates some of our favorite stories over the past 10 years. You have different conversations in there. You have prompts, discussion questions. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
SASA AAKIL:
Yep.
ALEXA:
I was wondering if you could tell us maybe a little bit more about the anthology, and then also if you could talk about the importance of collaboration in that work.
SASA AAKIL:
Yeah. OK. Yeah, this is great. This is so fun. So I have the great privilege of being one of the co-editors on this anthology, along with Kathy, who's in the back. And essentially, what we did was we selected work from the entire 10-year catalog of Shout Mouse Press. Shout Mouse Press has, what, over 60 books in its catalog now?
ALEXA:
Yeah.
SASA AAKIL:
And has been publishing the work of youth authors. So this work was all selected and distilled down into a spreadsheet of I can't even remember how many works. And I had the great privilege of going through, reading, deciding on order, deciding on thematic layout, deciding on writing prompts and conversations and how to frame all of it. Talking about the cover and the cover art and all of these different elements of what becomes an anthology. And so it was really interesting and funny because I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. We got behind on our timeline a number of times.
ALEXA:
Jason laughing at you.
[laughter]
SASA AAKIL:
A number of times, but it was such a beautiful experience. And I think where collaboration comes in, there's one way that's really obvious. But then there's another way that I wasn't expecting that I got to learn. And so the first ways that I was a co-editor. And so, of course, Kathy and I were working together to make sure that all of these stories were being done justice and being framed properly by all of these authors, many of whom are a decade older than they were when they first published. And so it was really funny to try to figure out how to make all of this work.
But in addition to that, there was this give-and-take between the authors and I, even though they weren't sitting there in the room reading their work and going through people, some of whom I know, some of whom I've never met, some of whom were in the program with me, and some of whom never were, and figuring out how to use their stories to extrapolate from what they've already said themselves to make this anthology cohesive and make it work together. And so it was this really funny thing where I ended up meeting some of the authors after the fact. And I was like, oh, I know you. I read your story, and with all those voices.
ALEXA:
Yeah, there's almost a collaboration that you're having with the past, or even a past self too, because you included your piece when you were--
SASA AAKIL:
ALEXA:
--15 years old.
SASA AAKIL:
Yeah, it's pretty wild.
ALEXA:
And I think also as writers, that's something that's often happening where we're collaborating with the people who came before us, even Jason, as you're mentioning, the legacy of poets that are in DC. Whose work are you in conversation with? Whose work are you carrying on so that as we go into the future and invite more young people into sharing their stories, it can provide a healthy space for them to do so?
I will pose this question to you two as well, because I think that collaboration is an important, if not key part of just like, strong literary citizenship. I would love for you two talk about collaboration in your work. And then also, just what makes a strong literary citizen for you?
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
OK. Well, so currently, I'm a professor at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Yes. OK. Hey, Coppin. And I am very proud of the fact that my students this semester launched the only literary magazine currently at Coppin, Ma'at's Feather. And when you were speaking earlier, Alexa, I was thinking of what you were saying in terms of young people in general feeling that you were capable of being a writer.
And I know one of the challenges that I found when working with the young people on launching this literary magazine is that initially, they thought that it was just going to be Coppin students and something for them to express themselves. But they didn't encounter the challenge in having students feel comfortable submitting. Because so many of the students on campus didn't have opportunities like we've had, where we could see ourselves as writers, and we felt comfortable sharing our work.
For many young people, it's such a private act. And so when my students were going out to invite people to submit, it was like, uh, I don't know if I'm ready. And so I used my listserv. I'm also the founder and executive director of Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice. So I used my listserv. My colleagues in the Writing Center used their listserv, and we sent the call. And so we had people submit to the literary magazine from as far as Malta, India, Nigeria.
So my students lost their mind. They were like, wait a minute. We have people from all over the world that want to submit to our literary magazine. And so there was nothing that I could say to give them the belief that what they were doing was meaningful, until they saw that people from outside of campus were interested in collaborating and contributing to this piece. And it definitely changed their mindset.
And so when we talk about travel being of importance, young people seeing spaces outside of their immediate area, I think that's a perfect example of how important it is for young people to see how other people see them. And I'm consistently trying to find ways to step outside of the box. I feel things like AI and devices really hinder my ability to show young people.
So there has to be experiences like that where it's beyond what I'm saying and what can I show them. And so collaboration, introducing young people to experiences outside of themselves has been paramount to my teaching practice. And when I even think of myself as a writer, I'm always thinking of myself as an educator and a connector. And so collaboration is key and foundational to that.
JASON REYNOLDS:
Awesome. I think I'm always trying to figure out how to turn this thing into play, because it is, and it should be. And so writing is one of the only things that I think where the playfulness of writing is stripped away, and it always has turned into some sort of intellectual endeavor or some sort of weird measuring stick to measure your intellectual capacity, using the academy to do all kinds of strange things, as far as siphoning off who deserves to be where and when, and who gets to say what and when and who gets to be engaged in particular conversations, typically taught as a science.
Everybody teaches language arts, but only the language part, never the art part. And so usually, for me, when I'm collaborating, I'm collaborating because I'm looking for play. I want writing to feel-- writing is already difficult innately. I want to work hard to inject as much joy into it as possible. And because so many other art forms get to play with other people, for some reason, so many of us feel like we're not allowed to. It's like musicians have each other.
Filmmakers have the actors. There's song and dance. There's all this stuff. And then it comes to the writer, and we're supposed to be solitary brooders who sort of like sit in these weird wooden rooms. It's so strange. It's such a weird-- or sit out in the woods where we're in Walden, making-- it's such a weird sort of-- and we all are supposed to be philosophical. And we're all supposed to be-- and I'm like, yo, I'm just trying to figure out how to engage with somebody else to see how their mind works, too.
And if I were to say, hey, let's throw this on the-- here's an idea. You show me what you got. I'll show you what I got, and let's figure out how to do this dance together. To me, maybe we might just make something that feels fresh to us, right? And that matters to me.
ALEXA:
Yeah. And then also, I think when young people in particular see adults or professional writers having a good time writing, making it look fresh and making it look stylish, and because it is stylish and fresh and fun, then it invites more people to actually want to do this work. And it maybe gives them the motivation or the confidence rather to submit their work to a journal because they feel like, oh, I can actually see myself doing this, too.
JASON REYNOLDS:
I mean, look, maybe I don't know if we've talked about this, but I did this thing with John Ashbery years and years and years and years and years ago. And for those of you who don't know John Ashbery, he's passed on now, but he was this-- they called him the father of postmodern poetry, which is neither here nor there. He was a very old white man who was good at his job, but also praised in a way that most of us will never get the opportunity to be praised, for obvious reasons.
And I'm at his house at a retreat, some sort of residency. And there's all these kids there who are fresh out of Harvard and Princeton and Yale, 19, 20, 21, 22 years old. And they're there to pray at the altar of John Ashbery and to like, what can you give me, Mr. Ashbery? I'm like 25, and I'm like, man, this is OK, but I'm not-- because my tradition is different. And there's a moment where all these young Ivy Leaguers are asking him, what did you mean when you wrote this? Or where do these ideas come from? Or what does this mean? Or what is this-- at 95 years old, he looked at them and he said, I know you're going to be heartbroken to hear this, but all these poems are about Batman.
[laughter]
Right? And I thought to myself, exactly. Shakespeare would have said the same thing. Y'all gave it all this gas. I was writing a soap opera, poking fun at the king and queen, and y'all turned it into something else, which is the power of it, and also the detriment of it sometimes.
ALEXA:
Yeah. Ugh. Felts. OK, OK. I could go on forever, but I was already given the little signal. And I know mama who's in the audience, she want to go get something to eat or something, I don't know. So we are going to wrap this up, but let's see. So to close out, and in honor of poetic legacy and of maybe sharing a gem with these beautiful people here that they can take into their own lives and into their own writing practices, do you have a gem of your own that maybe a mentor has shared with you that has helped either reshape or pivot, or just open up your work that you would like to share with the people here?
JASON REYNOLDS:
Well, I'll get mine out the way. And it wasn't a mentor who told me this, but it's something that I have been thinking about for a long, long time. And I think that as far as writing is concerned, I always say, I think poetry is the piano of literature, and which basically just means for the musicians in the room, if you can understand the piano, you might not be able to understand all the other-- I mean, you might not be to play all the other instruments, but you'll understand them.
And I think the learning sort of devices, poetic devices, how your licensing works, how enjambment works, how to metaphorize, all these things, I think if you learn that, then you understand language in general differently. And the second part of that is James Brown said that to him, every instrument is a drum, which is the reason why his music sounded so percussive, why the horns were percussive, why the guitar was percussive. And to me, all writing is poetry. And if I can keep that in mind, then I can deploy those devices whenever I need to turn prose into something I want it to be right. I don't feel bound by it.
KHADIJAH ALI-COLEMAN:
I love that was beautiful. And I think when we even think of the different types of writing styles, like music, a lot of that is for marketing purposes. And so once we get away from really trying to categorize our style of writing, then we can be more free. But I had a wonderful conversation. First of all, I would like to give it up to Janae and to her team for producing this wonderful event.
[applause]
And what I have been very impressed with are the young people who have been-- what do they call themselves? Our handlers. [laughs]
But the volunteers who I've been the young high school students that I've been meeting. And I had a conversation with a few of them around writing and asking me for advice. And I think that many of our young people right now are at a detriment. Older people too.
I'm not going to even throw shade on the young people, all of us with devices, with short-form media and things that are really limiting our attention span and not understanding that is programming our brain to operate in a certain way. So for those of us who had a writing practice before the onslaught of all of these technologies really impacting our ability to pay attention, many people who want to write believe that they can't write because of their attention span.
So my advice that I will offer is to not be defeated and understand that you can engage in behaviors in the Pomodoro method. Understanding that if you are dedicating time to write, even if you're just freewriting, that things that we do repeatedly become behaviors, and to give yourself grace. Don't believe the hype as everything that he said that it's only this elite group of people that can write. Give yourself grace, but also give yourself patience and attention to dedicating time to write so that you can grow your practice.
ALEXA:
Beautiful, thank you.
SASA AAKIL:
And I'll just close out with something quick. And this is something that I've heard from multiple mentors and also from Shout Mouse educators as well, which is the world needs your story. And it's really as simple as that. The world needs you. It needs your voice. It needs your unique perspective. It needs to hear what you have to say, because all of us have things that we're missing.
All of us have blind spots and things that we're not aware of. And so you need to be able to share your voice so that we can all learn together. It's necessary. It's required. You got to write. You got to write good. You got to keep writing. Write forever. Write until you can't write anymore. You have to share your voice. And not like pressure, but we really, desperately, desperately need to hear you. That's all.
JASON REYNOLDS:
Feel a little bit of pressure.
ALEXA:
I was going to say, it's not pressure, but please--
JASON REYNOLDS:
A little bit of pressure.
ALEXA:
OK, beautiful-- give it up. Give it up, give it up for these fantastic authors Jason Reynolds, Dr. Khadija Ali-Coleman and Sasa Aakil.
[honking]
Dr. Khadija and Sasa, y'all have a book signing right now. And then also definitely visit the Shout Mouse press tent to purchase some books and see some other youth-authored books. Thank you so much, y'all.
[music playing]
RYAN RECORD:
As we roll to the end of our coverage of the Books in Bloom authors panel, I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Jason Reynolds, Dr. Khadija Ali-Coleman, and Sasa Aakil for sharing their time, insights and incredible stories with the Howard County Community. And of course, we can't forget to shout out Janae Wheeler for inviting Dragon Podcasts to be a part of this spectacular event.
Outro
Ryan Record:
If you're a reader, a writer, or just love wholesome community vibes, put this event on your calendar for next year. You won't regret it. If you want to stay in the loop with the conversations driving our community forward, be sure to subscribe to Campus Drive wherever you get your podcasts. Want to hear the other amazing shows we're cooking up? You can also follow Dragon Podcasts and check out our full lineup by visiting our main page on Podbean. Just search Dragon Podcasts. Thanks for cruising with Campus Drive today. Until next time, keep exploring, inspiring, and creating. This is Ryan Record signing out.
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