Kwame Mbalia is a husband, father, #1 New York Times bestselling author, former pharmaceutical metrologist, and a publisher with Freedom Fire Books, an imprint of Disney-Hyperion. His debut middle-grade novel, TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY, was awarded a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, and it—along with the sequels TRISTAN STRONG DESTROYS THE WORLD and TRISTAN STRONG KEEPS PUNCHING—is published by Rick Riordan Presents/Disney-Hyperion. He is the co-author of LAST GATE OF THE EMPEROR with Prince Joel Makonnen, from Scholastic Books, and the editor of the #1 New York Times bestselling anthology BLACK BOY JOY, published by Delacorte Press. A Howard University graduate and a Midwesterner now in North Carolina, he survives on Dad jokes and Cheezits.
