Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson is an American author and librarian known for her fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults, including the middle-grade historical novel in verse Radiant (2025). She has written many acclaimed titles such as Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, which won the Coretta Scott King Author Award and a Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award, and Almost to Freedom, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book. Her other notable works include No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller and The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore, both drawing on the life of her great-uncle, Harlem bookseller Lewis H. Michaux.

Nelson was born in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, and earned an undergraduate degree in English from Point Park College (now Point Park University), a Master of English from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, and a Master of Library Science from the University of Pittsburgh. An experienced youth services librarian and educator, she has worked in public libraries in New Mexico, where she lives with her husband, and her books have received numerous honors including the Coretta Scott King Author Award, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award recognition, and multiple “Best Book” citations from