Ashley Bryan - Artist, Poet, Advocate
Ashley Bryan is an eclectic artist who uses painting, poetry, music, collage, and prose to tell stories. Bryan fuses these seemingly separate art forms within his books for children. "I try not to accept walls and boundaries and definitions in a strict way," he says. "I would hope that everything I do is interrelated." Bryan is known for retelling African folktales in a distinct, rhythmic prose that is heavily influenced by African-American poetry. In 1981 his collection of Nigerian folktales, Beat the Story-Drum, Pum-Pum, received the Coretta Scott King Book Illustrator Award. For more author interviews, visit us at readingrockets.org, a national education service of public television station WETA. Funding is provided by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.