In 1999, Derrick Barnes launched his writing career when he was hired as the first full-time Black male copywriter at Hallmark Cards. After publishing his first three books in 2004, Barnes went on to receive critical acclaim and numerous awards for more than a dozen books celebrating Black life and culture.

Barnes talks with Kansas City writer Rob Love about his new middle-grade novel. It features Henson Blayze, a 13-year-old Black football player with extraordinary talent, who faces prejudice in a mostly white town in the Mississippi Delta. The novel spans from the late 1800s through the present day, detailing how much — and how little — things have changed.

Barnes was a National Book Award Finalist for his 2022 graphic novel: Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice. That book also won the 2023 YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award and a Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor.

He’s also the author of the picture book Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, which received a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers.

A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Barnes now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife and four sons.