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 […]
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 […]
Amy Christine Parker is the author of three young adult novels: GATED, ASTRAY, and SMASH & GRAB. She resides in the Tampa, Florida area where it is way too hot for her liking and dreams of fall leaves and bonfires. When she is not writing, she is reading, traveling, spending time with her family, or […]
Mira Monroe is an award-winning YA fantasy author, receiving the New Apple Award for her debut novel Magick, in The Unwanted Series. Mira is a lover of all things fantasy and fairytale, especially the twisted ones. She loves to write strong female characters who don’t fall victim to circumstance but instead rise above. Mira prefers […]
Addie Tsai teaches courses in literature, creative writing, dance, and humanities at Houston Community College. She collaborated with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater on Victor Frankenstein and Camille Claudel, among others. Addie holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. The author of the queer Asian young adult novel […]
CHRISTINA FARLEY is the author of the Gilded series and middle grade, THE PRINCESS AND THE PAGE. Prior to that, she worked as an international teacher and at a top secret job for Disney where she was known to scatter pixie dust before the sun rose. When not traveling the world or creating imaginary ones, she spends time with […]