Laban Carrick Hill is the author of more than 25 books, including the 2004 National Book Award Finalist HARLEM STOMP!: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE, a book he researched for more than a decade. He has taught writing at the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College, Columbia University, Baruch College, St. Michael’s College in Vermont, University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, and the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. In the fall of 2008, he was a visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana. He is also the co-founder and former co-director of the Writers Project of Ghana, which was formed to promote literacy and literary culture and to publish literary books in Ghana. The Writers Project of Ghana has been supported by the U. S. State Department. In 2010, Hill went to the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka to teach writing on a Fulbright Fellowship. As well, the U.S. State Department has brought him to Egypt, the Philippines and Indonesia to lecture on American culture, African American history, hip hop, and writing.

Laban Carrick Hill's newest book, WHEN THE BEAT WAS BORN: DJ KOOL HERC AND THE ORIGINS OF HIP HOP, was the winner of the 2014 ALA Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award. DAVE THE POTTER: ARTIST, SLAVE, POET, a picture book poem illustrated by Brian Collier, won a 2011 Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Illustration Award and the award-winning AMERICA DREAMING: HOW YOUTH CHANGED AMERICA IN THE 60'S won the 2007 Parenting Publications Gold Award. His young adult novel CASA AZUL was selected as a New York Public Library 2006 Book for the Teen Age.

Hill's poems have been included in the Contemporary Poetry of New England anthology and in numerous literary magazines, including Solstice Literary Magazine, Tar River Review and Denver Quarterly. He was one of the founding editors of American Letters & Commentary. He has also written critical biographies for Scribners American Writers and British Writers series on J. M. Coetzee, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Jane Kenyon. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications such as The New York Times, The Smithsonian, and Eating Well.

Books by Laban Carrick Hill

When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop

written by Laban Carrick Hill, illustrated by Theodore Taylor III - Biography, Music, Picture