Angie Thomas to speak at CSC Oct. 29

Thomas will present a Craft Talk at 5 p.m. in Memorial Hall’s Auditorium, followed by a Q&A session. The program, brought to CSC by its Distinguished Writers Series, is sponsored by the Galaxy Series. Tickets are free but must be reserved in advance at https://chadronstate.hometownticketing.com.

Thomas’ 2017 novel The Hate U Give spent more than three years on the New York Times bestseller list. The story explores the world of 16-year-old Starr Carter, a girl who walks a careful line between her upper-crust prep school and the poverty-stricken neighborhood where she grew up. The Hate U Give has been translated into more than 30 languages and is a motion picture. Amazon’s Audible named it one of its 10 Best Audiobooks of the decade.

In a YouTube interview, Thomas discussed the theme of the book, saying empathy is more powerful than sympathy.

“Sometimes, the response to Black Lives Matter is ‘Blue Lives Matter or All Lives Matter.’  We’re not saying they don’t, but we are saying that there are systemic problems in our country where Black lives don’t matter enough,” Thomas said.

Thomas received the William C. Morris Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and was nominated for the Michael L. Printz Award and the Coretta Scott King Award. She was the inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant in 2015, awarded by We Need Diverse Books. Born and raised in Mississippi, the former teen rapper has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Belhaven University.

Her second novel, On the Come Up, and third book, Concrete Rose, also became New York Times bestsellers. Her 2023 contemporary fantasy series for middle-school students, Nic Blake and the Remarkables, is inspired by African American history and folklore.