Kwame Alexander has written seventeen books, owned several publishing companies, written for television (TLC's Hip Hop Harry), recorded a CD, performed around the world, produced jazz and book festivals, hosted a weekly radio show, worked for the U.S. government, and taught in a high school. Recently Kwame was a visiting writer in Brazil and Africa. He resides in the Washington, DC, area, where he is the founding director of Book-in-a-Day (BID), a program that teaches and empowers teenagers to write and publish their own books. The idea for He Said, She Said came during a writing workshop he conducted with thirty smart, funny, feisty, insecure, and ambitious young people in Charleston, South Carolina which, by the way, is his favorite place on earth (behind Bahia, Accra, and Tuscany, of course).