an inspiration for the book, which gives a fictional depiction of a code of communication that enslaved people used to help runaways attain freedom. The book, based on real events that occurred on Maryland's Eastern Shore, also featured notorious criminal Patty Cannon as a villain. In 2012, McBride co-wrote and co-produced Red Hook Summer (2012) with Spike Lee. In July 2013, McBride co-authored Hard Listening (2013) with the rest of the Rock Bottom Remainders (published by Coliloquy). In August 2013, his The Good Lord Bird, a novel, was released by Riverhead Books. The work details the life of notorious abolitionist John Brown. It won the 2013 National Book Award for fiction. On September 22, 2016, President Barack Obama awarded McBride the 2015 National Humanities Medal "for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America. Through writings about his own uniquely American story, and his works of fiction informed by our shared history, his moving stories of love display the character of the American family." In December 2020, Emily Temple of Literary Hub reported that his novel Deacon King Kong had made 16 lists of the best books of 2020, while in February 2021 it won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Deacon King Kong received the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction. Saxophonist and composer McBride is the tenor saxophonist for the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of best-selling authors who are also musicians. "Hopefully", McBride says, "the group has retired for good." He also toured as a saxophonist with jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott and has his own band that plays an eclectic blend of music. He has written songs for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., Pura Fé, and Gary Burton. McBride composed the theme music for the Clint Harding Network, Jonathan Demme's New Orleans documentary Right to Return, and Ed Shockley's off-Broadway musical Bobos . McBride was awarded the American Music Theater Festival's Stephen Sondheim Award in 1993, the American Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers Award in 1996, and the inaugural ASCAP Richard Rodgers Horizons Award in 1996. Personal life McBride is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University. He has three children with his ex-wife and lives in New York City and Lambertville, New Jersey. Bibliography The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (1995) Miracle at St. Anna (2002) Song Yet Sung (2008) The Good Lord Bird (2013) Kill 'Em