FROM “FRESH PRINCE” TO SWEET BLACKBERRY PRESS

Karyn Parsons

7 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Conversation / Q&A
The Alice Moore Black Arts and Cultural Center
135 South Pearl St., Albany NY 12202

Karyn Parsons, a multi-talented creative artist, starred as Hilary Banks, Will Smith’s shopping-and-money-obsessed cousin, on the NBC sitcom, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" from 1990 to 1996.

An author of books for children, she is the founder of Sweet Blackberry, a small press whose mission is to bring little-known stories of Black achievement to young readers. Her middle grade novel, How High the Moon (2019), recounts the challenges of a 12-year-old girl living in the Jim Crow South in 1944. Jacqueline Woodson called it, “historical and timely, captivating, and lovely.”

Her newest book, Clouds Over California (2023), is about a girl coming of age in 1970s Los Angeles, during a time of unrest and social change.

Parsons will spend much of her day visiting with middle school students in Albany.

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Major support and funding provided by the Carl E. Touhey Foundation.