R. Eric Thomas (he/him) is a national bestselling author, playwright, and screenwriter. His books include, Here for It, or How to Save Your Soul in America, which was featured as a Read with Jenna pic…
JEN HATMAKER is the New York Times bestselling author of For the Love and Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire, along with twelve other books. She hosts the award-winning For the Love podcast, is the deligh…
Jason Reynolds is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. After earning a BA in English from The University of Maryland, College Park, Jason Reynolds moved t…
Ibi Zoboi's debut novel American Street was a National Book Award finalist. She is also the New York Times Bestselling author of Pride, My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich, and Punching the Air with co-a…
AMY CHRISTINE PARKER is the author of the critically acclaimed duology, GATED and ASTRAY and the standalone thrillers, SMASH & GRAB, FLIGHT 171, and YOU'RE DEAD TO ME. GATED was a nominee for both the…
Dean was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize for his debut poetry collection, I Am Nobody’s Nigger. His poems have been anthologised by Bad Betty Press, Emma Press, Stripes Publishing, Team An…
Hazel Newlevant is a Portland-raised, Queens-residing cartoonist. Their comics include Tender-Hearted, Sugar Town, No Ivy League, and If This Be Sin. They are the editor and publisher of the anthologi…
Karelia Stetz-Waters remembers a time when happy endings romantic love was a holy grail she thought she would never find. Stories about lesbians all ended tragically. At seventeen, she was certain the…
Abdi Nazemian is the author of Only This Beautiful Moment - winner of the 2024 Stonewall Award and 2024 Lambda Literary Award - and Like a Love Story, a Stonewall Honor Book and one of Time Magazine’s…
Thien-Kim writes stories about Vietnamese characters who smash stereotypes and find their happy endings. A recovering Type-Asian, she guzzles cà phê sữa đá, makes art, and bakes her feelings to stay s…
Mariama J. Lockington is an adoptee, author, and educator. She has been telling stories and making her own books since the second grade, when she wore shortalls and flower leggings every day to school…
ADIB KHORRAM is the author of DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY, which earned the William C. Morris Debut Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature, and a Boston Globe–Horn Book Ho…
Julian Winters is the author of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award-winning Running With Lions; the Junior Library Guild Selections How to Be Remy Cameron and The Summer of Everything; and the forth…
Tobias is an author and editor from Sydney, Australia. Originally from Ballarat, Tobias worked for ten years as a performer, touring Australia and New Zealand with musicals such as Mary Poppins, CATS,…
Angeline Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a storyteller who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She gained attention from …
CORY (previously Cori) …earned degrees in poetry and screenwriting before falling in love with writing for children and young adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. They have authored four acclaimed Y…
Jen Ferguson (she/her/hers) Métis (on her father's side) and Canadian settler (on her mother's side) is an activist, a feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD. She believes writing, te…
Born and raised in Arizona, Sonora Reyes writes fiction full of queer and Latine characters in a variety of genres, with current projects in both kidlit and adult categories.
Denne Michele Norris is the author of the chapbook Awst Collection—Dennis Norris II, named a best book of 2018 by Powell's. A recipient of fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Tin House, VCCA, and K…
Sara Kehaulani Goo is a journalist and senior news executive who has led several news organizations including Axios, NPR and The Washington Post. She is the former editor-in-chief at Axios, where she …
