Alexs Pate Named 2021 Kay Sexton Award Recipient
SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA, March 30, 2021 – The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library announced today that Alexs Pate is the winner of the 2021 Kay Sexton Award for his significant contributions to and leadership in Minnesota’s literary community. Sponsored by St. Catherine University, the award is presented annually to an individual or organization in recognition of longstanding dedication and outstanding work in fostering books, reading, and literary activity in Minnesota and is part of the 2021 Minnesota Book Awards, presented this year by sponsor Education Minnesota.
Alexs Pate is an author, teacher, mentor, artist, and leader in the Twin Cities literary community. He currently serves as President and CEO of Innocent Technologies and is the creator of the Innocent Classroom, a program for K–12 educators that aims to transform U.S. public education and end disparities by closing the relationship gap between educators and students of color. Pate is also the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, two of which are Minnesota Book Award-winners; a children’s book; and two works of nonfiction. He is the editor of the collection, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota. He has taught at Macalester College, the University of Minnesota, Naropa University, and the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Creative Writing Program, where he also earned an MFA. Pate has served on the boards of The Givens Foundation, the Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries, and was president of the board of The Loft Literary Center and the Great Midwestern Bookshow. He has served on the Arts Midwest Censorship Task Force and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Committee, and was Commissioner of the Minneapolis Arts Commission.
The panel hailed Pate’s leadership as “quiet but transformational.” Pate has attacked racial stereotypes throughout his career and “worked to create worlds in which the humanity of everyone is recognized,” according to information from the Innocent Classroom.
“His care and concern for BIPOC writers (long before we were known as this collective group of writers existing outside the white dominant culture) were evident to me,” says former colleague, Pamela Fletcher Bush. “He worked steadily and strategically over the years to construct a Pan American Highway for us so we could travel along the white literary terrain of the Twin Cities.”
Pate developed and hosted the NOMMO African American Author Series through the Givens Foundation at the University of Minnesota. Fellow author David Lawrence Grant explains the importance of Pate’s creative leadership of that program: “His skills as ringmaster, provocateur, scholar, interviewer and curator, have made this series serve, not only as powerful introduction for many readers to the historical Black Arts Movement, but as a kind of praxis – a place where the roots of that Movement could be watered and nurtured.”
As a former student in Pate’s Macalester class on the poetics of hip hop, author Bao Phi remembers his teacher and the class vividly. “It was inspiring for me to see a Black author who was not only successful, but who was shaping the discourse on how art from his community should be engaged.”
David Lawrence Grant praised not just Pate’s substantial body of work, but that “he is still out there planting seeds that will continue to bear fruit – for literature and toward a healthier, more equitable civic culture – long into the future.”
Pate will be honored at the 33rd annual Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony held virtually on Thursday, April 29. Awards will also be presented to winners in nine categories. The Preface Reception begins at 6:30 p.m., followed by the Awards Ceremony at 7:00 p.m. The event is free; registration is required at www.thefriends.org/ceremony. The official hashtag for social media is #mnbookawards.
About the Minnesota Book Awards:
The Minnesota Book Awards is a year-long program of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library that connects readers and writers throughout the state with the stories of our neighbors. The process begins in the fall with book submissions and continues through winter with two rounds of judging. Winners are announced at the Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony each spring. Woven throughout the season are events that promote the authors and connect the world of Minnesota books – writers, artists, illustrators, publishers, editors, and more – to readers throughout the state. In recognition of this and its other statewide programs and services, the Library of Congress has recognized The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library as the state’s designated Center for the Book. For more information visit thefriends.org/mnba.