Clint Smith and Elizabeth Acevedo for ABOVE GROUND *IN-PERSON*

Join Loyalty Bookstores and DC Public Library for a live, in-person event with Clint Smith and Elizabeth Acevedo to celebrate the launch of Above Ground! This event will take place at DCPL's MLK Library location**This event is free to attend, but registration is requiredplease register on DCPL's website.** You can purchase the book from Loyalty below or borrow a copy from DCPL, and we will have additional copies for sale at the event. Please email  with any questions.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A remarkable poetry collection from Clint Smith, the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Critics Circle award-winning author of How the Word Is Passed.

Clint Smith’s vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. There are poems that revel in the wonder of discovering the world anew through the eyes of your children, as they discover it for the first time. There are poems that meditate on what it means to raise a family in a world filled with constant social and political tumult. Above Ground wrestles with how we hold wonder and despair in the same hands, how we carry intimate moments of joy and a collective sense of mourning in the same body. Smith’s lyrical, narrative poems bring the reader on a journey not only through the early years of his children’s lives, but through the changing world in which they are growing up—through the changing world of which we are all a part.

Above Ground is a breathtaking collection that follows Smith's first award-winning book of poetry, Counting Descent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2021. He is also the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review. and elsewhere. Clint received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and a Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University.

ABOUT THE IN CONVERSATION PARTNER

Elizabeth Acevedo is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also the author of With the Fire on High—which was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal—and Clap When You Land, which was a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus finalist.

She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. Acevedo has been a fellow of Cave Canem, Cantomundo, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion, and resides in Washington, DC with her love.

Please note Loyalty has a zero tolerance policy for harassment or intimidation of any kind during virtual or in-person events. 

Event date: 
Tuesday, March 28, 2023 - 6:30pm
Event address: 
MLK Library
901 G St. NW
Washington, DC 20001
Above Ground By Clint Smith Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9780316543033
Availability: On Our Shelves Now - Click on the title to see which location!
Published: Little, Brown and Company - March 28th, 2023

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America By Clint Smith Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780316492928
Availability: On Our Shelves Now - Click on the title to see which location!
Published: Little, Brown and Company - December 27th, 2022

Counting Descent By Clint Smith Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781938912658
Availability: On Our Shelves Now - Click on the title to see which location!
Published: Write Bloody Publishing - September 15th, 2016

The Poet X By Elizabeth Acevedo Cover Image
$12.99
ISBN: 9780062662811
Availability: On Our Shelves Now - Click on the title to see which location!
Published: Quill Tree Books - April 7th, 2020

With the Fire on High By Elizabeth Acevedo Cover Image
$12.99
ISBN: 9780062662842
Availability: On Our Shelves Now - Click on the title to see which location!
Published: Quill Tree Books - March 30th, 2021

Clap When You Land By Elizabeth Acevedo Cover Image
$12.99
ISBN: 9780062882776
Availability: On Our Shelves Now - Click on the title to see which location!
Published: Quill Tree Books - July 5th, 2022

Inheritance: A Visual Poem By Elizabeth Acevedo, Andrea Pippins (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Elizabeth Acevedo, Andrea Pippins (Illustrator)
$16.99
ISBN: 9780062931948
Availability: On Our Shelves Now - Click on the title to see which location!
Published: Quill Tree Books - May 3rd, 2022

Pre-Order Now Badge
Family Lore: A Novel By Elizabeth Acevedo Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9780063207264
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: Ecco - August 1st, 2023