Jacqueline Woodson: Hello. My name is Jacqueline Woodson. My full name is actually Jacqueline Amanda Woodson, and I was named for my father, who is Jack. I don't know where the Amanda comes from but I've always really liked my name, Jacqueline, even though it's really long and it took me a really long time to learn how to write it.

A lot of times, people have questions about the pronunciation of certain characters' names. Maizon at Blue Hill and Last Summer with Maizon, the main character's name is Margaret and the other main character is Maizon. In Hush, the main characters are Toswiah and Cameron, and in Miracle's Boys, the main characters are Lafayette, Charlie, and Ty'ree. When they made the miniseries, they changed the pronunciation to Tie-ree, but mine was Tie-ray. Lonnie Collins Motion, and Staggerlee, whose other name is Evangeline.

Show Way is cool, because there are some funny histories behind the names. My great-grandma was Soonie. There is Mathis May. There's my grandmother, who is Georgiana. My daughter's name is pronounced T-oh-she. That's a long O, not Toshi, which people tend to say. My mom's name is Anne. Her actually name is Mary Anne, but people called her Anne. Her sister is Caroline. Even though it's spelled like Caroline, it's pronounced Carlene, because she was indeed born in a car.