Anne-Marie Yerks is a creative writer from metro Detroit, MI. A graduate of George Mason’s MFA program, her work has appeared in literary journals such as “Juked,” “The Penn Review,” and others. She is the author of DREAM JUNKIES (New Rivers Press, 2016) and LUSH (Odyssey Books, 2020). She has freelanced for many magazines, publishing […]
Angeli E. Dumatol has always believed in the healing power of stories and smiles, so she tries to do her part in filling the world with both through her writing. Life has taught her about two types of bravery: being brave enough to stay and being brave enough to leave. She hopes to continue living […]
M. García (she/her) was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She moved to New York where she studied creative writing at The New School, worked in publishing, and lived under a pile of to-be-read books. She is the author of Even If the Sky Falls and The Resolutions from Katherine Tegen books (an […]
Mitali Perkins has written many books for young readers, including Between Us and Abuela (Winner of the Américas Award), Forward Me Back To You (SLJ and Kirkus Best YA Books of the year), You Bring the Distant Near (nominated for a National Book Award), and Rickshaw Girl (adapted into a film by Sleeperwave Productions), all of which explore crossing different kinds of borders. Mitali’s goal is […]
Abigail Johnson was born in Pennsylvania. When she was twelve, her family traded in snowstorms for year-round summers and moved to Arizona. Abigail chronicled the entire cross-country road trip in a purple spiral-bound notebook that she still has, and has been writing ever since. She became a tetraplegic after breaking her neck in a car accident […]
Sabina Khan is the author of ZARA HOSSAIN IS HERE (Scholastic/ April 6, 2021) and THE LOVE & LIES OF RUKHSANA ALI (Scholastic, 2019). She is an educational consultant and a karaoke enthusiast. After living in Germany, Bangladesh, Macao, Illinois, and Texas, she has finally settled down in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, with her husband, […]
Abdi Nazemian is the author of The Authentics. His novel The Walk-In Closet won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Debut Fiction. His screenwriting credits include the films The Artist’s Wife, The Quiet, and Menendez: Blood Brothers, as well as the NBC television series The Village. He has been an executive producer and associate producer on numerous films, including Call Me by Your Name, Little […]
JUNE HUR (“Hur” as in “her”) was born in South Korea and raised in Canada, except for the time when she moved back to Korea and attended high school there. She studied History and Literature at the University of Toronto. Most of her work is inspired by her journey through life as an individual, a […]
I. In my English classroom in high school, there was a large poster in the front of the room. In thick, lurid lime-green block letters it stated: “Every moment spent reading is a moment spent learning how to write.” Even now, I still do not know who this quote is attributed to, but I know […]
Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of two other YA novels: Necessary Roughness and Saying Goodbye, the sequel to Finding my Voice, as well as the middle grade novels If It Hadn’t Been for Yoon Jun and Night of the Chupacabras. Her books have won a number of awards, including Friends of American Writers, New York Public Library’s Best Books for the […]
Award-winning author J.C. WELKER has been, among other things, a fashion designer, a graphic designer, a filmmaker, and occasionally a kickboxer (seriously). Her novel THE WISHING HEART won the YARWA Rosemary Awards, Athena Awards, and was a finalist for Best First Book. She continues to work towards giving a voice to diverse stories, while facing magic and monsters along the […]
Caitlin Lochner is a nerd, traveler, and architecture enthusiast who worked as an assistant English teacher in Tokyo for three years before earning her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida. She loves reading and writing anything with magic, adventure, and complex found family relationships. She can typically be found absorbed in […]