Our Children's Authors

Oscar-winning actress, Moore won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award for her portrayal of Sarah Palin in the HBO film Game Change. Her Freckleface Strawberry books are the basis for an Off Broadway show that opened in 2010. Her book Freckleface Strawberry and the Dodgeball Bully was a New York Times Bestseller.

Maria Ingrande Mora (they/she) is a content strategist and brunch enthusiast. Their love languages are snacks, queer joy, and live music. A graduate of the University of Florida, Maria lives near a wetlands preserve with two cats, two children, and two billion mosquitoes. They can often be found writing at their stand-up desk, surrounded by house plants. Unless the cats have destroyed them.

Heidi Moreno is a Mexican American author, illustrator, designer, and community cat advocate living in Los Angeles, California. Her work has been featured in galleries across the United States, and she frequently participates in group shows at Gallery Nucleus in Portland, Oregon. She has collaborated with Facebook, Papyrus, the OC Fair, and several cat rescues such as Kitten Rescue LA.

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Heidi is constantly chasing the feeling that Halloween brought her as a child, when she ran through streets with only the warm, dim streetlamps guiding her way to the next orange-lit home with a jack-o-lantern calling. Her textures and use of watercolors, gouache, and colored pencils are inspired by her favorite childhood tools. She loves to create eccentric characters, and to imagine what their quirks and days might be like. Her debut illustrated book, Working from Home with a Cat (Chronicle Books), started out as a zine she printed at home. Luna Oscura (Lil’ Libros) is her first bilingual children’s book. On most days you can find her hanging out with her husband Danny and their neighborhood's community cats.

Andrea Mosqueda is a Chicana writer, born and raised in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley.

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Luma Mufleh, immigrant, Muslim, gay, entrepreneur, mother, introvert, leader, and speaker, is best known as "Coach" by the students and families for whom she founded the first network of middle and high schools for refugee kids in the United States. She writes from her own experiences of both struggle and privilege, with a combination of humor, humility, and inspiration.

Bethanie Murguia is an author and illustrator. She has created eighteen picture books, and she is currently working on middle grade graphic novels for Macmillan and Candlewick Press. She received her MFA in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York and worked as an art director for various publishers, design firms, and marketing agencies before dedicating herself to children’s writing and illustration. Her books have received many accolades, including starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly, Junior Library Guild Gold Standard, ALSC Summer Reading List, IndieNext List, Amazon Best Books of the Year, BCCB Best Books of the Year, and Bank Street College Best Books of the Year.

Bethanie lives north of the Golden Gate Bridge with her family and two forty-pound lap dogs. When she’s not creating stories, she’s most likely hiking, biking, or snuggling up with her dogs and a book.

Cole Nagamatsu's fiction has appeared online and in print at Tin House, cream city review, West Branch, Bartleby Snopes, PodCastle, Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, Timber Journal, and other publications. She is the editor-in-chief of Psychopomp Magazine and is a visiting assistant professor of Creative Writing at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

Catherine Newman is a beloved and widely read parenting blogger and author of Waiting for Birdy (Penguin) and Field Guide to Catastrophic Happiness (Little, Brown). Her work has been published in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Real Simple, O Magazine, and Whole Living.

Maya Soetoro-Ng is the Director of Community Outreach and Global Learning for the Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. She holds a Masters degree in Secondary Education from NYU and a PhD in Multicultural Education from the University of Hawaii. Her first picture book, The New York Times bestselling Ladder to the Moon (Candlewick), was inspired by her young daughter Suhaila’s questions about her grandmother Ann Dunham, the mother of Maya and of our forty-fourth president, Barack Obama. Maya is an advocate for community service and peace education. Her debut young adult novel is being published by Candlewick.

Dr. Eucabeth Odhiambo is a professor of Teacher Education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. She has served the education community in a variety of positions during the past 25 years. As a classroom teacher, she has taught all grades between kindergarten and middle school. She currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Early Childhood and Curriculum and Instruction programs. She teaches child development and social studies methods and has made numerous professional presentations at local, state, national, and international conferences. In addition to her writing for children, she has authored publications on teaching, pre-service training, and diversity.

David Opie grew up in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where he spent a lot of time roaming around the woods. He went on to earn his BFA in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His illustrations have appeared in many magazines and newspapers and he has worked for educational publishers including Heinemann/Houghton Mifflin, Macmillan, Learning A-Z, McGraw-Hill, National Geographic School Publishing, Scholastic, and Soundprints/Smithsonian.

David has taught at the Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago and the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, and was a full-time instructor in the illustration department of the American Academy of Art in downtown Chicago. He currently teaches at the University of New Haven. David and his wife live with their dog in Connecticut.

Emma Otheguy is the creator of HarperCollins’ award winning Reina Ramos (I Can Read) early reader series, and the author of the picture books Martí’s Song for Freedom/ Martí y sus versos por la libertad, illustrated by Beatriz Vidal (Lee and Low), which received five starred reviews, was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and the New York Public Library, and was the recipient of the International Literacy Association’s Children’s and Young Adult Book Award in Intermediate Nonfiction, A Sled for Gabo (Atheneum), illustrated by Ana Ramirez Gonzalez, which was an NCTE Charlotte Huck Recommended Book and a Best Book of the Year by the Chicago and New York Public Libraries and Parents Latina magazine, and her latest, Martina Has Too Many Tías, illustrated by Pura Belpré Honor illustrator Sara Palacios (Atheneum),which is a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection and has received starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal. Emma’s middle-grade novels include Silver Meadows Summer, which was called “a magnificent contribution to the diversity of the new American literature for young readers” by Pura Belpré-winning author Ruth Behar; Secrets of the Silver Lion: A Carmen Sandiego Novel; and Sofía Acosta Makes a Scene, which received the International Latino Book Award Silver Medal for Best Youth Latino Focused Chapter Book. Emma also co-authored The Madre de Aguas of Cuba: Unicorn Rescue Society middle grade fantasy with Newbery Honor-winner Adam Gidwitz. Her forthcoming books include the third and fourth installments in the Reina Ramos series, Reina Ramos: Tour Guide, and Reina Ramos: Neighborhood Helper, and the first two titles in a new magic fantasy-adventure series titled Cousins in the Time of Magic, published by Atheneum.

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Andrea M. Page (Hunkpapa Lakota) writes middle grade, picture books, and educator guides for children’s books by Native authors. She is the author of SIOUX CODE TALKERS OF WORLD WAR II (Pelican Publishing), which won a 2019 Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Gold Medal. She serves as a board member for the Children’s Literature Assembly (CLA) of the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), where she recently became one of the vice-chairs of CLA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. In addition, Andrea is an instructor at the Highlights Foundation, where she mentors other children’s writers.

Her upcoming projects include a contribution to the bestselling “Who Was…?” series titled WHO WAS WILMA MANKILLER? (Penguin Workshop). Andrea is a long-time member of the Rochester Area Children’s Writers and Illustrators (RACWI) group and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

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Dan’s writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and McSweeney’s, among other publications. He studied Geography and City Planning at West Chester University of Pennsylvania and Science Writing at Johns Hopkins University. Dan is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and the National Association of Science Writers (NASW).

Dan’s recent books include THEY HOLD THE LINE: WILDFIRES, WILDLANDS, AND THE FIREFIGHTERS WHO BRAVE THEM.

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Edith Pattou is the author of three award-winning fantasy novels for young adults as well as the New York Times bestselling picture book, MRS. SPITZER’S GARDEN. 

She was born in Evanston, Illinois, grew up in Winnetka, and was a teenager in the city of Chicago. She completed her B.A. at Scripps College in Claremont, California where she won the Crombie Allen Award for creative writing. She later completed a Master’s degree in English Literature at Claremont Graduate School followed by a Masters of Library and Information Science at UCLA. She currently resides with her husband, Charles, in Columbus, Ohio.

Shawn Peters has spent more than two decades writing professionally for television and advertising.

Nadine Pinede is the daughter of Haitian exiles from the Duvalier dictatorship. She earned her literature degree from Harvard (magna cum laude) and studied French and English at Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Her MFA is in Fiction and Poetry. Her PhD in Philosophy of Education focused on literature and the moral imagination. Pinede, twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for a Hurston-Wright award, has to her credit fiction and poetry published in Haiti Noir (edited by Edwidge Danticat) and An Invisible Geography, a poetry chapbook. She is the author of two nonfiction works Sexism & Race, and Women in Film. As a member of the Authors Guild and Women Writers of Haitian Descent, and a We Need Diverse Books mentee and grantee, her poetry has been widely anthologized.  Nadine lives and works in Belgium and is an editor for Enchanted Lion Books.

Passionate about creating thoughtful representation for kids and teens, Maya Prasad is a South Asian American author, a Caltech graduate, and a former software engineer. She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest, where she enjoys hiking, kayaking, and raising her budding bookworm kiddo. She’s the author of two YA contemporary romances: Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things (Disney 2022); Wild Wishes and Windswept Kisses (Disney 2023), and also the author of the Sejal Sinha chapter book series (S&S/Aladdin).

Elvis Presley is one of the most influential pop culture figures of the 20th century. Often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", Elvis’ commanding voice and charismatic stage presence unleashed a musical and cultural revolution that changed the world forever. Over the course of his career, Elvis was nominated for 14 Grammy Awards (3 wins), sold over 1 billion records world-wide, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was named One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation by the United States Jaycees. In addition to his musical accolades, Elvis starred in 33 films and made numerous television appearances. Today Elvis continues to inspire musicians, fashion designers, and social influencers and captivate audiences around the world.

Nicki Pau Preto is the author of YA fantasy trilogy Crown of Feathers and the forthcoming YA duology, Bonesmith. Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents is her MG debut.

Nick Pyenson is a paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution where he studies the evolution and ecology of whales. Along with his scientific collaborators, he has named over a dozen new fossil species, discovered the richest fossil whale graveyard on the planet, and described an entirely new sensory organ in living whales. He has received the highest research awards from the Smithsonian for his work, including the Secretary’s Research Prize and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Barack Obama’s Administration. Pyenson is also a member of the Young Scientists community at the World Economic Forum, and the father of two young kids.

Abigail Rayner grew up mostly in England with a couple of years in Greece thrown in. She moved to New York City in her twenties, where she worked as a reporter for British newspapers. Her books, The Backup Bunny (2018) and I Am a Thief (2019) called “Hilarious and sweet” by Kirkus Reviews (starred review), have delighted children. She lives in New Jersey, with her husband, two kids, two cats, and lots of tasty gluten-free snacks.

Aimee Reid is an author with a background in education and editing. She taught high school English, Music, and Special Education before she began to work full-time as a writer. As a child, Aimee was a voracious reader and could often be found—curled in a corner, tucked in the crook of a tree limb, or crouched by a book rack in the grocery store aisle—carried away to the world of a book. Now Aimee sends her own stories out into the world. It brings her great joy to think of other children nestled on a lap or cuddled on a couch reading good books to share.

Michael Relth is a veteran animator based in Los Angeles.

Rob Renzetti is a veteran of TV animation, whose work on Cartoon Network earned him an Emmy. He created the Nickelodeon show MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT, acted as the supervising producer for Disney’s GRAVITY FALLS, and served as executive producer on the first two seasons of Disney’s BIG CITY GREENS, as well as many other credits. He has also published four books for Disney Publishing, including the New York Times #1 Best Seller GRAVITY FALLS: JOURNAL THREE.

When he’s not writing, Rob likes to play boardgames, watch horror movies, and chase after his very naughty rabbit, Zigzag.

Jennifer’s endless curiosity has taken her from Philadelphia to Frankfurt and has led to careers in the U.S. Foreign Service, secondary education, finance, editing, audio description for television, and copywriting. Throughout all the changes in locales and jobs, writing was one constant. The other was her husband, whom she met in Germany while on her first tour as a foreign service officer.

Jennifer’s poetry, short stories, and novels draw heavily from her many interests and hobbies—with a particular focus on birding and astronomy. She’s passionate about expanding young people’s horizons and imaginations as well as promoting racial harmony over division. Now a resident of Maryland, Jennifer writes in a small upper-floor room overlooking her bird feeders. She also enjoys hiking, crocheting, and following the latest news from NASA.

My first words came in Spanish. My first books were fairy tales. Born in Puerto Rico, I learned to love the mountains, the birds, coffee and pasteles and the greatest treasure: its people. My writing is full of nature and journeys. I’ve yet to write about pasteles. 

Still in elementary school, I moved to New York where I learned English, the difficult task of being an immigrant, the greatness of family and friends. I studied in the University of Puerto Rico; first to become a teacher; years later to obtain a Master’s in Guidance and Counseling. I’m a writer and poet. I love the mountains and the sea, the country and the city, Spanish and English, New York and Puerto Rico, the picture book and the novel. I’m working to share beautiful worlds in words.  

A former fashion editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Roberts is an artist, illustrator, photographer, and stylist whose work also appears in Tatler, Italian Vogue, and other international publications.

Michael J. Rosen is the creator of a wide variety of more than 150 books for both adults and young readers. A poet, fiction- and non-fiction writer, humorist, illustrator, and editor. For over 45 years, ever since working as a counselor, youth-services director, and teacher at local community centers, Michael has engaged with children, parents, and teachers. He has taught poetry and other forms of creative expression at literature conferences, colleges, libraries, and many nontraditional learning environments. As a visiting author, in-service speaker, and workshop leader, he has traveled to well over 700 schools and conferences around the nation.He lives on a 50-acres in the foothills of Appalachia, east of Columbus where he served for nearly 20 years as literary director of The Thurber House, a cultural center in James’s restored boyhood home.

Beck Rourke-Mooney grew up outside Providence and has worked as clambake staff, a donut finisher, a ballot counting machine tester, a telemarketer, and most importantly, a middle school English teacher. When not writing contemporary YA novels, they procrasti-bake, write songs, and watch (depending on who you ask) either way too much or just enough television, including, of course, wrestling. She lives in upstate New York.

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A novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, Rudnick has written three books and frequently writes for The New Yorker. His articles and essays have also appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Esquire, Vanity Fair, and Spy. His screenplays include InandOut and Addams Family Values, and his plays include I Hate Hamlet. Using the pseudonym Libby Gelman-Waxner, Rudnick wrote film criticism for Premiere magazine.

Katheryn Russell-Brown is a children’s book author, Professor of Law, and Director of the Race and Crime Center for Justice at the University of Florida. She is the author of the picture book biographies Little Melba and Her Big Trombone, illustrated by Frank Morrison, which received the Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration, the Eureka! Honor Award, and was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature; A Voice Named Aretha, illustrated by Laura Freeman, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The Brown Bookshelf; and She Was the First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm, illustrated by Eric Velasquez, which won the 2021 NAACP Image Award and was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and The Chicago Public Library, and included in the Rise: A Feminist Book Project List. Katheryn was born in New York City and grew up in Oakland, California. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.

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Geo Rutherford is an artist, educator, and hobby limnologist based in Wisconsin. She is known for her viral TikTok account @geodesaurus.

Aminah Mae Safi is the author of four novels, including Tell Me How You Really Feel (Feiwel & Friends) and the forthcoming Travelers Along the Way: a Robin Hood Remix (Feiwel & Friends, 2022). She’s an erstwhile art historian, a fan of Cholula on popcorn, and an un-ironic lover of the Fast and the Furious franchise. Her writing has been featured on Bustle and Salon and her award-winning short stories can be found in Fresh Ink (Crown Books) and the forthcoming Freshman Orientation (Candlewick Press, 2023).

Andrés Salguero and Christina Sanabria are the Latin Grammy-winning music duo 123 Andrés. Their catchy songs and lively concerts get the whole family dancing and learning, in Spanish and English.

Rob Sanders is a teacher who writes and a writer who teaches. He is known for his funny and fierce fiction and nonfiction picture books and is recognized as one of the pioneers in the arena of LGBTQ+ literary nonfiction picture books. 

A native of Springfield, Missouri, he has lived in Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee. After earning a B.S. in Elementary Education and a Master’s Degree in Religious Education, Rob worked for fifteen years in children’s religious educational publishing as a writer, educational consultant, trainer, editor, editorial group manager, and product developer.

In 2006, Rob moved to Florida and began working as an elementary school teacher. Soon he was serving as a district writing trainer and resource teacher. But he spent most of his career teaching fourth graders about books and words and reading and writing. Rob now writes full time.

Claire Schultz was born and raised in New Jersey but moved to the UK to study children's literature. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and now works in publishing. She lives in London with a haunted cat.

Caren Stelson is the author of works for children and young adults. Caren has had a long career in education, as a teacher, writer-in-residence, and freelance writer. After receiving her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University in 2009, Caren decided it was time to write the stories that needed her attention. Accolades for her books include a Robert Sibert Honor Award, placement on the longlist for the National Book Award, and the Jane Addams Book Award.

Caren and her husband Kim have two grown children. They split their time between home in Minneapolis and the small town of Lanesboro.

Isaiah Stephens is a freelance illustrator and animator located in Lowell, MA. He studied Media Arts and Animation at the New England Institute of Art, and has illustrated book jackets for the Italian translation of The Hunger Games, the novel The Devil Came East, and others.

Kara Storti knew she wanted to be a writer when she decided to skip her junior prom to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Middlebury, Vermont. In the years following she spent most of her free time writing short stories, novellas, and poems, and composing pop songs. In 2006 she graduated from the University of Southern Maine with an MFA in Creative Writing, where she fell in love with writing novels for young adults. Kara has been a singer, songwriter, pianist, and flautist since she was a child and has performed throughout the world. She grew up in upstate New York and now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Ellen Surrey is an illustrator out of sunny Los Angeles, California. Blending her love of mid-century design and vintage children’s books, Ellen enjoys finding beauty in the past and colorfully sharing it with a contemporary audience. She’s illustrated many books about inspiring people, including Dolly Parton! Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and most recently as USPS postage stamps. When she isn’t working, Ellen enjoys watching old movies and visiting her favorite thrift stores.

Ellen Tarlow writes stories for very young children. Her published children’s books include, most recently, LOOKING FOR SMILE and BECOMING BLUE. She has been a classroom teacher and for many years worked as an editor of early childhood classroom materials. In that job she got to write hundreds of stories for young children. Now that she is working less, she is excited to work on her own stories. After spending her whole adult life in New York City, Ellen just moved to the Hudson Valley with her husband David, a painter.

Sarah Stewart Taylor is a fiction writer and journalist who lives with her family on a farm in Vermont; her published mysteries include the Maggie d’Arcy series, starting with The Mountains Wild, the Sweeney St. George mystery series (the first book in the series, O’ Artful Death, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel), The Expeditioners series of adventure novels for middle grade readers, and Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, a graphic novel for younger readers, which was nominated for an Eisner Award.

Leah Tinari is a widely exhibited New York based artist. Since graduating from RISD in 1998, Tinari has documented her life and friends through painting the capture the energy and exuberance of her surroundings.

Phuc Tran is an award-winning writer, tattooer, and Latin teacher (for which he has won no awards). Lots of things make Phuc cranky: being too cold, being too hot, staying up too late, getting up really early, wearing baggy socks, eating jaggedy cereal for breakfast. Cranky is his first children’s book. His memoir Sigh, Gone received the New England Book Award, the Maine Literary Award, and was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, Audible, and others. Phuc lives in Portland, Maine, with his wife (who is rarely cranky) and his two daughters (who are sometimes cranky). “Phuc” is pronounced like “Luke” but with an F. Learn more at www.phucskywalker.com.

Jing Jing Tsong is a New York Times bestselling children's picture book illustrator. Jing Jing's images are a digital collage of color, traditional printmaking techniques

and pattern. When not growing kale or surfing, Jing Jing spends her time translating the world through her words and pictures.

Dana VanderLugt is a writer and teacher who believes firmly in the power of stories to change hearts and minds. In addition to her writing for middle grade readers, Dana’s work has been published in Longridge Review, Relief: A Journal of Art & Faith, the Michigan Reading Journal, and The Reformed Journal, where she is also a frequent contributor on its daily blog.

A former middle school English teacher, Dana now works as an instructional coach and has an MFA in Creative Writing from The Sena Jeter Naslund-Karen Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. She lives in Michigan with her husband, three sons, and a spoiled golden retriever.

Allison Varnes taught English in special education for eight years, and once had to convince administrators that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was not an actual endorsement of witchcraft. She is currently a Ph.D. student in English Education at The University of Tennessee, where she also supervises beginning English teachers during their internship year.

Rona Wang is currently a math major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For her short stories, she has been named a HerCampus 22 Under 22 and nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. She is originally from Portland, Oregon, and as a second-generation Chinese American she loves to write stories that reflect the Asian American experience. You Had Me at Hello World is her debut YA novel.

The Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock serves as the Senior Pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta. He also has served at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church of Birmingham, the Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York City, and Baltimore’s Douglas Memorial Community Church. The Rev. Dr. Warnock holds degrees from Morehouse College and Union Theological Seminary, and is the author of The Divided Mind of the Black Church. In January 2021, Dr. Warnock became Georgia's first Black senator.

Carole Boston Weatherford is an accomplished poet, writer, artist, musician, and social critic whose bibliography spans over thirty books. Her work in children's literature  has earned her widespread acclaim and awards.

Carole's picture books have been described as poetic, intimate, and ultimately educational reads. Often focused on the growth of the civil rights movement and the state of African-American culture in the United States, her works provide genuine insights into our cultural memory through their powerful storytelling.

Tony Weaver, Jr. is founder and CEO of Weird Enough Productions, a new media production company dedicated to creating positive media images of black men and other minority groups, and the creator of the educational webcomic The UnCommons, whose curriculum is used by over 40,000 students per month. Tony has been the recipient of the Leadership Prize and the Black Excellence Award, participated in the NBCUniversal Fellowship Program and the Peace First Fellowship, is a TEDx speaker, and was one of Forbes’ 2018 “30 Under 30” honorees—the first comic book writer to ever make the list.

Molly Webster, a graduate of NYU’s Science Writing Program and an award-winning journalist, is a Senior Correspondent at WNYC’s Radiolab. She is an accomplished writer having contributed to Scientific American, National Geographic Adventure, and Wired. Most recently she presented a TED Talk about her research on sex chromosomes.

Maya Wei-Haas is an award-winning reporter at National Geographic. She writes about all things science and has a particular affection for rocks and reactions. Maya pursued a bachelor's in geology at Smith College and then won an NSF fellowship to support her Ph.D. work in Earth Science at the Ohio State University. She's traveled the world in the name of science, scooping ice melt from the top of Antarctic glaciers and hauling up sediments from Svalbard lakes. She made the jump to journalism with the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship. Now she's working to bring these types of adventures—and the science that surrounds us—to all. In 2019, she was honored with AGU's David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism for her story about the discovery of a submarine volcano's birth. In addition to National Geographic, her work has appeared at Smithsonian.com and EOS. She's working on a forthcoming children's book about the amazing things that rocks can reveal with Phaidon Press.

Sean Fay Wolfe is a seventeen-year-old Eagle Scout and writing prodigy. He is the author of the Minecraft fan fiction series The Elementia Chronicles (HarperCollins).

Xulin (they/them) is an award-winning Canadian-Chinese illustrator, author, and comic journalist living in Toronto. As a lifelong learner passionate about causes including science, education, and representation, they've dedicated their career to illustrating complex ideas and diverse, vibrant characters. As a first-generation immigrant, their art is shaped by personal experience—growing up between cultures, exploring the nature of the Rocky Mountains, and a lifelong love of learning. Their approach to art is bold and vibrant, emotional, communicative, and meticulously researched.

Xulin is an emerging voice in comics, authoring and illustrating thought-provoking stories at the intersection of social justice and science. They have published work with the Guardian, Vox, and solo-exhibited at the United Nations Geneva HQ with a comic (The Silent Pandemic: No Time to Wait) that has brought awareness on pressing public health issues to international diplomats and the general public alike. In the realm of children and middle-grade lit, they have worked on covers and illustrated books for clients such as HarperCollins Kids, Orca Book Publishers, and Lorimer Press.

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Jenna Yoon is a debut author and has spent equal amounts of time living in Korea and the U.S. She holds a BA in Art History from Wellesley College, and a MA in Korean Art History from Ewha Woman’s University. Lia Park and the Missing Jewel is her middle grade debut.

Born and raised in California, Helen Yoon graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a BS in chemistry and from Art Center College of Design with a BFA in illustration. The author-illustrator of critically acclaimed picture books including OFF-LIMITS and I'M A UNICORN, Helen Yoon lives in the Los Angeles area. She writes and draws for a living. She is fond of sabbaticals.

Katie Zhao is a 2017 graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English and Political Science, and a 2018 Masters of Accounting at the same university. She is the author of THE DRAGON WARRIOR duology (Bloomsbury Kids), HOW WE FALL APART (Bloomsbury Kids), LAST GAMER STANDING (Scholastic), WINNIE ZENG series (Random House Children’s Books), THE LIES WE TELL (Bloomsbury Kids), and forthcoming  ZODIAC RISING duology (Random House Children’s Books). She is represented by Penny Moore of Aevitas Creative Management. She’s a passionate advocate for representation in literature and media.