John Blake is an award-winning author and senior writer at CNN.com, the online site for CNN. He is also the author of “More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.” Blake’s memoir was named the winner of the 2024 Christopher Awards, which celebrates books that “affirm the highest value of the human spirit.” Previous winners include former President Jimmy Carter and Pulitzer Prize-winning historians David McCullough and Jon Meacham. “More Than I Imagined” was also a gold medal winner in the 2024 Nonfiction Book Awards and a gold medal winner in the memoir/inspiration category in the 2024 Illumination Book Awards. His book was also selected for the 2024 Books All Georgians Should Read by the Georgia Center for the Book.

He has been honored by the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Academy of Religion, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Religion Communicators Council and with the GLAAD Media Award. He was most recently the winner of the 2019 Sigma Delta Chi awards for Excellence in Journalism for his online columns on race and politics. His 2020 essay, “There’s One Epidemic We May Never Find a Cure For: Fear of Black Men in Public Spaces,” was recently selected by Bustle Digital Group as one of the 11 best essays on racism and police violence. The other authors on that list included Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, and Roxane Gay.

Blake’s first book, “Children of the Movement,” was a finalist for the 2005 NAACP Image Awards in the Outstanding Literary Work Non-Fiction category and a finalist for the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards. He has spoken at high schools, colleges, symposiums and in documentaries about topics such as race, religion and politics. Blake is a native of Baltimore, Maryland and a graduate of Howard University.