Andrea Davis Pinkney is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of numerous books for all ages, a 30-year publishing industry veteran, champion of literacy, and renowned media personality and contributor. She is a four-time NAACP Image Award nominee, and has been inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame for her illustrious career writing books for children and young adults, including picture books, historical fiction, novels, and works of non-fiction. Ms. Pinkney has been honored with both the Regina Medal and the Arbuthnot Honor Award, recognizing her distinguished contribution to the field of literature. Her books have garnered multiple Coretta Scott King Book Awards, the Parenting Publication Gold Medal, and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor. Her most recent book is Loretta Little Looks Back: Three Voices Go Tell It, an illustrated multi-generational novel celebrating the groundbreaking moments in history leading to African Americans’ right to vote.
Pinkney is a captivating and illuminating speaker. She has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, NPR, Oprah Radio, and as a White House guest author. She is a frequent media contributor to national outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today, The Huffington Post, and Essence magazine.
Pinkney is a gifted presenter. She is a champion of many causes, including DEIB in the workplace, literacy, writing and how to get published, balancing career and life, wellness and women’s empowerment, and effective parenting along with all facets – motherhood, strategies for raising children in today’s world, empowering special needs children, talking to kids about race, and encouraging a life-long love of reading. Pinkney is often invited to speak at colleges and universities, corporations, parenting organizations, museums, media groups and conferences, and to educators and advocacy groups including the United Nations, Lady Gaga’s Born this Way Youth Wellness Foundation, Chelsea Clinton’s Too Small to Fail, and at the Library of Congress. Pinkney impacts audiences of all ages, from students to corporate executives, with her unique perspectives forged from her life’s work, as a celebrated author, successful publishing executive, mother and wife, and spokesperson for today’s most relevant causes.
A graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Pinkney has served in leadership and executive roles in both magazine and book publishing, most currently as Vice President, and Executive Editor at Scholastic, where she has acquired and edited books that have gone on to win the National Book Award, Newbery Honor, the Coretta Scott King Honor, the Stonewall Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award. She was named one of the “25 Most Influential Black Women in Business” by The Network Journal and along with her husband and frequent contributor, Brian Pinkney, named among the “25 Most Influential People in Our Children’s Lives” by Children’s Health Magazine, among many other prestigious awards and accolades.
