Red Emma’s

D. Watkins is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Beast Side, The Cook Up, Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised, and We Speak for Ourselves—which was Enoch Pratt Free Library’s 2020 One Book Baltimore selection. His newest book, Black Boy Smile, was released in May.

Watkins is Editor-at-Large for Salon. He is a writer on the HBO mini-series We Own This City and hosts the show’s companion podcast. Additionally, he was featured in the HBO documentary, The Slow Hustle. His work has been published in the New York Times, Esquire, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and other publications. Watkins is a college lecturer at the University of Baltimore, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing. He also holds a Master of Education degree from Johns Hopkins University.

Some of Watkins' awards include the Johns Hopkins Distinguished Alumnus Award, the BMe Genius Grant for Dynamic Black Leaders, the City Lit Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts, the Maryland Library Association’s William Wilson Maryland Author Award, and Ford’s Men of Courage Award for Black Male Storytellers. He was also a finalist for a 2016 Hurston Wright Legacy Award, and The Cook Up was a 2017 Books for a Better Life finalist.

He lives in Baltimore, MD with his wife and daughter.

Sheri J. Booker is an award winning author, educator, poet and television consultant. She is the author of Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner City Funeral Home, winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author. She’s been featured in the NY Times, Essence Magazine, Washington Post, Baltimore Magazine, NPR and TVOne. In 2014, she graced the cover of the Baltimore Sun’s 50 Women to Watch Issue.

At the age of 21, Sheri self-published her first book One Woman, One Hustle. And by the time she was 25, she landed a major publishing deal with Gotham Books to publish her memoir, which will be adapted into a television show.

Sheri has lived and worked in South Africa, where she helped to teach journalism skills to African Women. She served as a Cultural Ambassador for the U.S. Embassy and traveled to India to perform poetry and teach writing and performance courses.

She currently teaches writing and production at Morgan State University. Her first children’s book, Imagine a Brown Girl will be released this Fall.