Janet Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native, and grew up in a family of voracious readers. As an undergraduate at Reed College, Fitch had decided to become an historian, attracted t…
Carolyn Mackler is the author of the popular teen novels, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things (A Michael L. Printz Honor Book), Infinite in Between, Tangled, Guyaholic, Vegan Virgin Valenti…
I have always been a storyteller. Even before I could write my name, I could tell a good tale. And I told them all the time. As a preschooler, I told my neighbors all about my three-legged cat named S…
A versatile writer, Nancy Garden has published books for children as well as for teens, nonfiction as well as fiction. But her novel Annie on My Mind, the story of two high school girls who fall in lo…
Julie Anne Peters was born in Jamestown, New York. When she was five, her family moved to the Denver suburbs in Colorado. Her parents divorced when she was in high school. She has three siblings: a br…
Vaunda Micheaux Nelson loves bringing books and children together and feels lucky to have two careers that foster this. The children's librarian and author says, "It was destined from the day I was bo…
Alan Gratz is the bestselling author of a number of novels for young readers. His 2017 novel Refugee has spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, and is the winner of 14 state …
Jewell Parker Rhodes has always loved reading and writing stories. Born and raised in Manchester, a largely African-American neighborhood on the North Side of Pittsburgh, she was a voracious reader as…
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…
Daniel Nayeri is a writer and editor in New York City. He wrote and produced The Cult of Sincerity, the first feature film to be world-premiered by YouTube. He has had all kinds of jobs around books, …
Morgan Matson grew up in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut. She attended Occidental College in Los Angeles but halfway though a theater degree, she started working in the children's department …
Renée Watson is the author of the children’s picture book, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen (Random House, June 2010), which was featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Her middle grade novel…
Helene Wecker’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature, the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and was nominated fo…
Jasmine Warga is a writer from Cincinnati, Ohio who currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. She is the internationally bestselling author of My Heart and Other Black Holes and Here We Are Now. Her boo…
Dana Alison Levy was raised by pirates but escaped at a young age and went on to earn a degree in aeronautics and puppetry. Actually, that’s not true—she just likes to make things up. That’s why she a…
Becky Albertalli is the author of the acclaimed novels Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (film: Love, Simon), The Upside of Unrequited, and Leah on the Offbeat. She is also the co-author of What If It…
I grew up in the forests of upstate New York, where I spent the first half of my childhood reading about fantastical adventures and the second half acting them out with foam swords at a live action ro…
Megan Wagner Lloyd is the writer of the kids' graphic novels ALLERGIC and SQUISHED, co-created with illustrator Michelle Mee Nutter, and the SUPER PANCAKE series, co-created with illustrator Abhi Alwa…
Megan E. Freeman attended an elementary school where poets visited her classroom every week to teach poetry, and she has been a writer ever since. Her New York Times bestselling novel in verse, ALONE,…
Tiffany D. Jackson is the New York Times Bestselling author of YA novels including the Coretta Scott King — John Steptoe New Talent Award-winning Monday’s Not Coming, the NAACP Image Award-nominated A…
M. K. England grew up on the Space Coast of Florida watching shuttle launches from the backyard. These days, they live on a micro-farm in rural Virginia packed with video and board games, plants, D&D …
Jamie Sumner is the author of the critically-acclaimed middle-grade novels, Roll with It, Tune It Out, and One Kid's Trash. Her forth middle-grade novel The Summer of June hits shelves on May 31st, 20…
Andrea Beatriz Arango is the author of Newbery Honor Book Iveliz Explains It All and the Pura Belpré Honor Book Something Like Home. She was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she first became a te…
Shifa Saltagi Safadi was born in Syria and immigrated to the US with her parents when she was a young girl. She is a bilingual Arabic/English speaker, and is very familiar with the challenges of learn…
