Summer Edward (born 10 March 1986) is a Trinidadian American writer, children's book editor, educator, children's book specialist, and Caribbean children's literature advocate based in the USA.[1] In 2010, at the age of 24, she founded Anansesemezine, the first publication devoted to coverage of English-language Caribbean children's literature and served as its editor-in-chief for 10 years.[2] At 26, she became one of the Caribbean's youngest literary editors. Anansesem has published some of the most distinctive and distinguished voices in Caribbean literature for young people including Floella Benjamin, Gerald Hausman, Ibi Zoboi, Itah Sadu, Lynn Joseph, Margarita Engle, Nadia L. Hohn, Olive Senior and Vashanti Rahaman.
Edward earned a bachelor of arts degree in psychology at Temple University, where she organized the College of Liberal Arts' World Voices Poetry Festival and received the Jane D. Mackler Baccalaureate Award for academic achievement. She holds a Master of Education degree in reading, writing, literacy from the University of Pennsylvania. She remained a straight-A student throughout her university career and is a lifelong Roothbert Fellow and a lifelong Phi Beta Kappa member.
Career
Edward worked at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as an associate editor, developing and editing children's fiction books for the Heinemann division. She also worked at NoveList, a division of EBSCO Information Services, where she specialized in creating readers' advisory resources for children and teens. For several years, she taught writing and communications courses at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine. From August 2023 to July 2024, Edward temporarily took on the duties of the Managing Editor of The Horn Book Magazine, covering for Cynthia Ritter, who was then on extended leave. She has continued on as Consulting Editor at The Horn Book and is also an adjunct professor of children's literature at The Community College of Vermont.
Literary activism
Edward has worked for diversity in children's publishing and for the advancement of Caribbean children's literature. She has been a judge and editor for writing competitions, including the Golden Baobab Prizes for African children's literature, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards,[3] the CODE Burt Awards, and OpenIDEO's Early Childhood Book Challenge.[4] Her writings on multicultural children's literature appear in School Library Journal,[5]The Horn Book Magazine,[6]WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom, sx salon, Charlotte Huck’s Children’s Literature: A Brief Guide, The Millions,[7]NoveList (EBSCOhost), on the Social Justice Books website,[8] on the International Literacy Association's website, and on the KidLit TV website.[9]
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