Jenna Luecke is a designer and illustrator who spikes her morning coffee with glitter, magic spells, and feminist outrage. She is the author of The Breakup Hair Handbook (Andrews McMeel). She splits her time between Zürich, Switzerland, and Austin, Texas.
Meher Manda is a writer, culture critic, editor, and educator, fully formed in Bombay, India, though currently stationed in The U S of A. She's the author of the poetry chapbook Busted Models (No, Dear / Small Anchor, 2019) and her work has been published in The Margins, Los Angeles Review, Catapult, Epiphany, Kweli, Cosmonauts Avenue, and elsewhere. As a journalist, she writes about the intersection of culture and politics, with a focus on South Asian works of art. Her work can be found at The Juggernaut, The Guardian, Bustle, Scroll, Firstpost, and elsewhere.
A Best New Poets and Best of the Net Anthology nominee, she has received fellowships and grants from The Polis Project, DreamYard, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, and J. N. Tata Endowment for Higher Education. She is currently collaborating on a political graphic novel, A TOWN LIKE EVERY OTHER, forthcoming from Hachette India in 2025. She is also working on a debut short story collection and a novel.
Christina Mandelski is the author of the young adult novels Stuck With You (Entangled Crush 2019), Love and Other Secrets (Entangled Crush, 2018), The First Kiss Hypothesis (Entangled Crush 2017), and The Sweetest Thing (Egmont, 2011). She lives in Texas with her family.
Like Sharon Stone and the zipper, Mike McClelland is originally from Meadville, Pennsylvania. He has lived on five different continents but now resides in Georgia with his husband, two sons, and a menagerie of rescue dogs. He is the author of the short fiction collection Gay Zoo Day and his creative work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Boston Review, Vox, The Baffler, and a number of literary magazines and anthologies. He's a graduate of Allegheny College, The London School of Economics, the MFA program at Georgia College, and the University of Georgia's Creative Writing PhD program.
Laura Ojeda Melchor is a Cuban-American writer who grew up in Montana, where a spruce tree in her front yard was her most frequented reading nook. She now lives in her beloved, adopted home state of Alaska with her son, partner, and puppy. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her debut middle grade novel, Missing Okalee, was published by Shadow Mountain in fall 2021.
Susan Metallo is a neurodivergent youth librarian and author of the YA novel Reasons to Hate Me, which has won several awards, including the 2022 SCBWI YA Work-in-Progress Award, and will be published by Candlewick in the Fall of 2025. Her work has been recognized by the Tallahassee Writers’ Association, Book Pipeline, and the Searchlight Writing for Children Awards; and published in Ladybug and Cricket magazines and The Seven Hills Review. She lives in New Mexico with her husband, her children, and an 85-lb. bulldog who fervently believes she will fit on your lap.
Christyne Morrell writes middle grade novels and the occasional picture book. She is the author of the fantasy middle grade novel, Kingdom of Secrets (Delacorte 2021) and TREX (Delacorte 2022). When she's not writing children's books, Christyne is a corporate contracts attorney. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, daughter, and hyperactive beagle.
Matt Myklusch is the author of 7 middle grade novels, including The Order of the Majestic and its sequels, as well as the Adventures of Jack Blank, which begins with The Accidental Hero. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Rebecca, his boys, Jack and Dean, assorted pets, and other forms of magic.
Elisa Nader is the author of the acclaimed YA novel Escape from Eden (Merit Press, 2014). She likes cheese and tv marathons.
Paul-Anthony Navarro wrote his first stage play at the age of 15 and has since written and produced many works for the professional theater. Paul made his living as an actor for many years in Los Angeles and recently graduated from the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology program. He lives in Los Angeles.
J.M.M. Nuanez's debut middle-grade novel, Birdie and Me, was published in Spring 2020 by Dial Books/Penguin Books for Young Readers. In her spare time she likes to garden, play with her cats, and build stuff.
Caitlin O'Connell is an editor and writer working in New York City. She has a degree in Creative Writing from Ithaca College, with a focus on historical and children's fiction. She is usually surrounded by books and cats.
Sarah Ockler is the bestselling author of Twenty Boy Summer, The Summer of Chasing Mermaids, and several other books for young adults. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and has received numerous accolades, including ALA's Best Fiction for Young Adults, Girls' Life Top 100 Must Reads, Indie Next List, and nominations for YALSA Teens' Top Ten and NPR's Top 100 Teen Books.
Sarah is a champion cupcake eater, tea drinker, night person, and bookworm. When she's not writing or reading at home in Colorado, Sarah enjoys hugging trees and road-tripping through the country with her husband, Alex.
When Jean Patrick was in second grade, she had two dreams: to play major league baseball for the Chicago Cubs and to write books for kids. Although she's still working on the first goal, she has written several books for young people, including The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth and Long-Armed Ludie. A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program, Jean lives near Mitchell, South Dakota, where she continues to write nonfiction and fiction about protagonists who achieve the impossible.
P. O’Connell Pearson’s love of history began in high school and took her through college and a happy career in teaching. Now with an MFA from Lesley University, history inspires Patty’s award-winning nonfiction for ages ten and up—Fly Girls, Fighting for the Forest, Conspiracy, and We Are Your Children Too, forthcoming from Simon and Schuster. When she is not reading or writing about unsung heroes in history and government, Patty enjoys talking about history as a volunteer on the National Mall in Washington, DC. She lives in the City of Fairfax, Virginia.
Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, the 2020 LA Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies focuses on Black women, sex, and the Black church, and is being adapted for television by HBO Max with Tessa Thompson executive producing. Deesha is also a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and will be the 2022-2023 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.
Carrie Pomeroy’s essays and stories have appeared in The Laurel Review, The Silent Film Quarterly, Literary Mama, and CALYX, and in the anthologies The Saint Paul Almanac and Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers. She also blogs for Home/School/Life magazine. In 2014, she won a grant from the Jerome Foundation to do research at the Charlie Chaplin Archive in Bologna, Italy, which let her combine her love of poring over old documents with her passion for gelato and pasta. She writes narrative nonfiction for children and young adults and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and two children.
Laurel Randolph has been a food writer for ten years and a cook since she was old enough to properly hold a whisk. She is the bestselling author of The Unofficial Simpsons Cookbook, The Instant Pot® Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook: Easy Recipes for Fast & Healthy Meals, The Instant Pot® No-Pressure Cookbook: 100 Low-Street, High Flavor Recipes, and Instant Pot Desserts. She has written for numerous publications including The Spruce Eats, Food 52, Simply Recipes, EatingWell, Paste Magazine, and Serious Eats.
Rinsai Rossetti's debut novel, The Girl with Borrowed Wings (Dial Books for Young Readers 2012), was named one of Kirkus's best books of the year. She was born in Thailand, and has lived in Canada, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates. She currently lives in France, where she is at work on her next novel.
Lupe Ruiz-Flores is the author of six bilingual picture books published by Arte Público Press. Her published anthologies include Thank U: Poems of Gratitude by Millbrook Press, Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America by Philomel Books, Latina Authors and Their Muses by Twilight Times Books, and Péinate: Hair Battles Between Latina Mothers & Their Daughters by La Pluma y La Tinta. Lupe has lived in Bangkok,Thailand, and Okinawa, Japan, where she learned how to pattern draft from a Japanese tailor.