Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of over ten books for children and adults, including the critically acclaimed childhood memoir The Hate Race, the ABIA award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the Victorian Premier's Award winning poetry collection Carrying the World, the Boston Globe/Horn Prize and CBCA award-winning picture book The Patchwork Bike and her newly released picture book When We Say Black Lives Matter. In 2019, she was the inaugural Poet Laureate for The Saturday Paper.