Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, as indicated by her accent. She was an inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant 2015, awarded by We Need Diverse Books. Her debut novel, The Hate U Give, started as a senior project in college. It was later acquired by Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins in a 13-publisher auction and debuted as a #1 New York Times bestseller, spending over 240 weeks on the list and winning the ALA’s William C. Morris Debut Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award (USA), the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize (UK), and the Deutscher Jugendliterapreis (Germany). The Hate U Give was adapted into a critically acclaimed film from Fox 2000, starring Amandla Stenberg and directed by George Tillman, Jr.
Angie’s second novel, On the Come Up, was a #1 New York Times bestseller as well. The Paramount Pictures film, directed by Sanaa Lathan, was released in 2022. In 2021, Angie returned to the world of Garden Heights with Concrete Rose, a prequel to The Hate U Give focused on seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter that debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Her New York Times-bestselling middle-grade debut, Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy, published in 2023, and its sequel The Book of Anansi in 2025. Angie is also a co-author of the New York Times bestsellers Blackout and Whiteout.