Jay Ellis Discusses Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend w/ Jason Reynolds

MahoganyBooks is excited to host star of HBO's Insecure Jay Ellis as we celebrate the release of his debut memoir, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? This humorous memoir chart's Ellis' unforgettable journey from adolecence to adulthood, told in the roast-you-with-love voice of your closest homey! Moderating the afternoon's conversation will be New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds!

A big thank you to our partners and co-hosts at the DC Public Library and the DC Public Library Foundation for your generous supporter of this event.

About the book: Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?
Jay Ellis, star of HBO’s Insecure, tells the story of growing up with an imaginary best friend you will never forget—part Dwayne Wayne from A Different World, part Will Smith from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—in this hilarious, vulnerable memoir.
What to do when you’re the perpetual new kid, only child, and military brat hustling school to school each year and everyone’s looking to you for answers? Make some shit up, of course! And a young Jay Ellis does just that, with help from his imaginary friend, Mikey.
A testament to the importance of invention, trusting oneself, and making space for creativity, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? is a memoir of a kid who confided in his imaginary sidekick to navigate parallel pop culture universes (like watching Fresh Prince alongside John Hughes movies or listening to Ja Rule and Dave Matthews) to a lifetime of birthday disappointment (being a Christmas-season Capricorn will do that to you) and hoop dreams gone bad. Mikey also guides Ellis through tragedies, like losing his teenage cousin in a mistaken-target drive-by and the shame and fear of being pulled over by cops almost a dozen times the year he got his driver’s license.
As his imaginary friend morphs into adult consciousness, Ellis charts an unforgettable story of looking inward to solve to some of life’s biggest (and smallest) challenges, told in the roast-you-with-love voice of your closest homey.
About the author: Born in Sumter, South Carolina, to a military family, Jay Ellis spent his childhood inventing new personas for every town he landed in. Too many to count. After college, he realized the NBA wasn’t good enough for him and he didn’t want to crush other players’ dreams as he dominated the league so he decided to take his one-man show to Hollywood, where he got his start on BET’s The Game. Now an accomplished actor, philanthropist, and entrepreneur, Ellis is best known for his role as Lawrence on HBO’s Insecure, for which he won an NAACP Image Award. He appeared alongside Tom Cruise, flying jets through the skies, in the Oscar-nominated film in Top Gun: Maverick. When he’s not on set filming he spends the majority of his days cleaning up the messes that his daughter’s imaginary friend “Jack” made. Karma.

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About the moderator: Jason Reynolds is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books for children and young adults. He is best known for his novels All American Boys (co-written with Brendan Kiely), the Track series, and Long Way Down, which received Newbery, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Honors. Among Jason’s many accolades, he was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2020-2022. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program and lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

• Event guidelines are subject to change.
• Non-refundable but tickets can be transferred.
• IMPORTANT: Only books purchased at MahoganyBooks or sponsored by the library will be signed.
• Parking is limited. Ridesharing highly encouraged.
• Note: Books will be available for pick up during the event. Those not retrieved there must be picked up at our National Harbor location within two weeks of the event date. Any left after the deadline will be donated to a local organization.
• Please email us at least seven days in advance at [email protected] should you need any accommodations to attend this event.
• Photographs may be taken during the event WITHOUT FLASH.
• Please tag us and use #mahoganybooks #blackbooksmatter #dideveryonehaveanimaginaryfriend

-- Let's have an amazing afternoon,
The MahoganyBooks Team

Event Venue

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G Street Northwest, Washington, United States