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Know Your Power Summit

Creativity for Community Change

A teens only summit featuring guest speakers, Tracie Ching and Jason Reynolds. Teens will create original works of art and music in workshops hosted by Words, Beats, and Life and DCPL's Teen Council

DC Public Library and DC Public Library Foundation is excited to offer a teens only summit, featuring guest speakers, illustrator Tracie Ching and author, Jason Reynolds. In the spirit of the Know Your Power arts contest, teens will discuss how creativity can be used to bring social change and create original works of art and music in workshops hosted by Words, Beats, and Life and DCPL's Teen Council.

All teens in attendance will receive a copy of "Miles Morales: Suspended" by Jason Reynolds for their home library courtesy of the DC Public Library Foundation. The high-flying sequel to his groundbreaking young adult novel "Miles Morales: Spider-Man", "Miles Morales: Suspended" about the adventures of the unassuming, everyday kid who just so happens to be Spider-Man.

Thanks to Politics and Prose and Awesome Con for supporting for this event!

Registration is limited and available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

About the speakers:

Tracie Ching is an illustrator who made her home in pop-culture creating alternative movie posters for cult classics and showing in galleries such as Spoke Art in San Francisco. She has since grown her portfolio to include commercial art for Hasbro and Penguin Randomhouse, covers for TIME and Newsweek and key art for Disney, Netflix, and Marvel Studios. Ching is also known for her political work such as the official inaugural poster for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, viral KavaNope poster and voting initiatives like Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote. She is often engaged on social justice and welfare campaigns like PSAs for Smokey the Bear, the Equal Rights Amendment campaign and National Geographic’s Campaign for Nature. Ching’s work has been shown in the Getty Museum and Design Museum in London and in the permanent collection of  The Library of Congress and Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. She is founder and principal mentor of the biennial We Create Mentorship & Grant program.

She has exhibited at every Awesome Con since its inception in 2013. In celebration of the 10th Anniversary, Tracie has created a special piece featuring Awesome Con's mascot, Awesome Bot. The art will be featured on a limited edition signed print and an exclusive t-shirt, both of which will be available at Awesome Con while supplies last.

Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen books for young people, including Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, All American Boys (with Brendan Kiely), Long Way Down, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (with Ibram X. Kendi), Stuntboy, in the Meantime (illustrated by Raúl the Third), and Ain’t Burned All the Bright (with artwork by Jason Griffin). The recipient of a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, an NAACP Image Award, and multiple Coretta Scott King honors. Reynolds served as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2020-2022 and has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, CBS This Morning, and Good Morning America. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program and lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

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