At NCTE’s first-ever Virtual Annual Convention you’ll have the opportunity to hear from inspiring speakers who care about literacy as much as you do.
We previewed keynoters for the General Sessions and All-Attendee Events here and we’ve got many more to share!
Keynote speakers will speak during our traditional meal function times (breakfasts and luncheons). This year these events are included in your convention registration and do not require a ticket and additional fee.
Aida Salazar
Middle Level Luncheon
Friday, November 20 | 12:30-2:00 pm ET
Aida Salazar is an award-winning author and arts activist whose writings for adults and children explore issues of identity and social justice. Her most recent book is The Land of the Cranes. She is a founding member of Las Musas, a Latinx kidlit debut author collective.
Phuc Tran
ELATE Luncheon
Friday, November 20 | 12:30-2:00 pm ET
Phuc Tran has been a high school Latin teacher for more than twenty years, and is also a highly sought-after tattoo artist in the Northeast. His 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s Ted Radio Hour. He is the author of a memoir titled Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In.
Angie Thomas
ALAN Breakfast
Saturday, November 21 | 9:30-10:45 am ET
Angie Thomas was born, raised, and still resides in Jackson, Mississippi. She is an inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant 2015, awarded by We Need Diverse Books (diversebooks.org). Her acclaimed debut novel, The Hate U Give, is a #1 New York Times bestseller and a major motion picture from Fox 2000. Her second novel, On the Come Up, is on sale now.
Chanel Miller
Secondary Section Luncheon
Saturday, November 21 | 12:30-2:00 pm ET
Chanel Miller is a writer and artist whose critically acclaimed memoir, Know My Name, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. She is a 2019 Time Next 100 honoree and a 2016 Glamour Woman of the Year honoree under her pseudonym, “Emily Doe.”
Jerry Pinkney
Children’s Book Award Luncheon
Saturday, November 21 | 12:30-2:00 pm ET
Jerry Pinkney is the illustrator of the 2020 Orbis Pictus Award winner, A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation. The legendary author and illustrator’s many accolades include the Caldecott Medal, five Coretta Scott King Awards, five Coretta Scott King Honor Awards, four New York Times Best Illustrated Books, and four gold medals from the Society of Illustrators.
Kate & Jol Temple
Children’s Book Awards Luncheon
Saturday, November 21 | 12:30-2:00 pm ET
Kate and Jol Temple are internationally awarded children’s authors whose books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Their recent picture book, Room on Our Rock, is an allegory about empathy and refugees which received the NCTE Charlotte Huck Award and numerous other awards. Kate and Jol live in Sydney, Australia, with their two sons.
Barry Wittenstein
Children’s Book Award Luncheon
Saturday, November 21 | 12:30-2:00 pm ET
Barry Wittenstein is the author of A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation, winner of the 2020 Orbis Pictus Award. He has written several picture books, including Waiting for Pumpsie and The Boo-Boos That Changed the World: A True Story about an Accidental Invention (Really!). Barry lives in New York City.
Jason Reynolds
Children’s Literature Assembly Breakfast
Sunday, November 22 | 9:00-10:15 am ET
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and the winner of multiple awards for his books, which include When I Was the Greatest, All American Boys, and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. He is also the 2020–2021 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. He lives in Washington, DC.
Valerie Kinloch
Affiliate Breakfast
Sunday, November 22 | 10:30-11:45 am ET
NCTE President-Elect Valerie Kinloch currently holds the positions of Renée and Richard Goldman dean and professor, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh; executive member, AERA Consortium of University and Research Institutions; and cochair, Remake Learning Council. Prior to assuming the deanship at the University of Pittsburgh, Kinloch served as professor of literacy studies and associate dean at Ohio State University and assistant professor of literacy studies at Teachers College-Columbia University.
Ebony Flowers
National Writing Project Brunch
Sunday, November 22 | 10:30-11:45 am ET
Ebony Flowers is a cartoonist and an ethnographer with expertise in qualitative research and evaluation, picture-based methods, curriculum studies, and S.T.E.A.M. education. She has received the 2017 Rona Jaffe Award, the 2019 Ignatz Award for Promising New Talent, and a 2020 Believer Award for Fiction. She lives in Denver, Colorado.