JoAnn is the illustrator of many books for young readers. She happily grew up on Staten Island in NY surrounded by a big, Italian family and lots of trees. Now she happily lives in New Hampshire with her husband and enjoys digging holes to plant trees which she likes to watch grow along with her two children. Visit her at joannadinolfi.com.
Carly Allen-Fletcher is an author-illustrator based in England.
When not illustrating books and dreaming up characters, Mithila Ananth can be found smelling books, collecting stationery and hobbies, and relaxing with ‘90s cartoons. She likes happy endings. She lives in Bengaluru, India.
Carl Angel is an artist, illustrator and graphic designer whose work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Hawaii. He has illustrated several children's books, most recently Sky High. He lives in Burbank, California.
Darlene Beck Jacobson has a BA in Special Education and a Reading Specialist MA. She worked as a Speech Language Specialist with the Glassboro Public Schools in Glassboro, NJ for 20 years. When not writing books, she substitute-teaches for Pre-K and K classes in her former school district.
Rachelle is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for children. Her publications include books and magazine pieces, and she is a regular contributing writer for Scholastic Science World classroom magazine. For nearly 20 years she has also been a popular children's entertainer, performing as Tickles the Clown and Mother Goof Storyteller. In a parallel life, she works as a psychiatric social worker and rescue squad volunteer. She lives in central New Jersey with her husband and daughters.
Peter Catalanotto is an award-winning author/illustrator with four dozen books to his credit, including Monkey & Robot, More of Monkey & Robot, Matthew A.B.C, Emily's Art, and Ivan the Terrier. In 2008 he was commissioned by First Lady Laura Bush to illustrate the White House holiday brochure. Peter also teaches the first children's book writing course offered at Columbia University and Pratt Institute and has visited over 1600 elementary schools in 40 states.
Denys is the author and illustrator of more than 50 picture books for children, including Never Spit On Your Shoes, winner of the California Young Readers Medal. The books about Minnie and Moo started as early readers. They proved so popular, the series ran for fourteen titles. Then the two cows grew up and were featured in longer chapter books. Hooves of Fire is their second chapter book appearance.
April Chu began her career as an architect with a degree from the University of California, Berkeley, but decided to return to her true passion of illustrating and storytelling. She recalls spending most of her childhood drawing whimsical characters in her notebook after school everyday, and she hasn't stopped drawing ever since. April currently lives and works in Oakland, California.
Nancy Churnin is the author of several picture book biographies, including South Asia Book Award winner Manjhi Moves a Mountain and Sydney Taylor Notable Irving Berlin, the Immigrant Boy Who Made America Sing, both Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People. The former theater critic for the Dallas Morning News and Los Angeles Times San Diego Edition, she’s now a full-time writer and peace negotiator between her dog and cats. She lives in North Texas.
Lori has worked for years as an Itinerant Hearing Teacher, working with deaf and hard-of-hearing students. She loves to tell stories and her first one, 1 Zany Zoo, recently came out with Simon & Schuster and won the Cheerios Spoonful of Stories New Author contest. Cock-a-Doodle-Oops! is her second book for children, but she has many more stories she wants to write.
Julie Downing is an internationally published author and illustrator. She has written and/or illustrated over 40 books for children, and has won many awards for her work, including a Parent's Choice Award, and the New York Public Library Best Books Award. She was selected to appear in Talking with Artists Too, a book about 12 of the nation's best Childrens' Book Illustrators. She currently teaches watercolor and Children's Book Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Chris Ewald studied art at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He works on digital games and animation; Hildie Bitterpickles Needs Her Sleep is his first picture book. He lives in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Due to a glitch in the time-space continuum, Florida Frenz wound up on the wrong planet. On the planet she should have been on, everyone is autistic. When no work needs to get done, everyone spends their time flapping, doodling, and spinning. However, Earth has become a home to Florida, and she has discovered many Earthlings can be fun and nice.
Marcia Goldman has her Masters Degree in Special Education and has spent the last 25 years focusing on providing therapeutic-based programs for children with autism and their families.
Jeff Gottesfeld is an acclaimed writer for page, stage, and screen. His work has won awards from the American Library Association, Association of Jewish Libraries, International Reading Association, Writer's Guild of America, and the National Council for the Social Studies, and been translated into many languages. He lives in Los Angeles.
Jess Hong received her BA in illustration from The Academy of Art in 2016. She lives in Oakland, CA with her best friend and their three rats.
Aiko was born in Tokyo, Japan. Since a young age she has loved drawing, painting, and creating stories. At the age of 6 she started learning oil painting. In 1993 she came to the United States where she studied psychology at Arizona State University. She continued her education at the University of Texas at Austin. After receiving a Ph.D in Pharmacology and working as a neuropharmacologist, she has begun making picture books. Aiko lives in Ohio with her cat and dog.
Richa Jha is a picture book author from New Delhi, India. She has been at the receiving end of threats from her two children that one of these days, she might wake up to find her mobile flushed down the toilet. She takes pride in announcing that she is not on Whatsapp.
Dwight Kuhn is sole photographer for more than 140 childrens books on nature and biology. Thousands of Dwight's photos have appeared in major magazines and textbooks. Dwight was one of ten photographers featured in the book Wildlife Photography: The Art and Technique of Ten Masters by Susan Rayfield.
Ian Lendler is the author of several picture books including An Undone Fairy Tale, Little Sid, and Saturday. He also wrote the graphic novel series The Stratford Zoo Presents... Sadly, he does not look good in a tutu or a tiara.
Julius Lester has written more than 30 books for children. Among the awards his books have received are the Newbery Honor, Boston-Globe Horn Book, Coretta Scott King, National Book Award finalist, ALA Notable Book, National Jewish Book Award finalist, and New York Times Outstanding Book Award. He lives in Belchertown, Massachusetts.
Felicia Marshall has illustrated numerous children's books. She received her bachelor's degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. A native Texan, she lives in Houston with her husband, three children, and their cat, Kitty.
Marissa Moss has written more than 50 books for children. Best known for the Amelia's Notebook series, Moss' books are popular with teachers and children alike. Five million copies have been sold and the series has been translated into five languages. At home in the U.S., Amelia is often used to model journal writing while the historical journals in Moss' Young American Voices series are used in social studies classes.
Yevgenia Nayberg is a painter, illustrator, and stage designer. A native of Kiev, Ukraine, she graduated from The National School of Arts. Yevgenia's paintings have been featured in solo exhibitions in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and Moscow as well as in numerous international group art shows. She has designed sets and costumes for over 40 theatrical productions and received a number of prestigious awards for stage design. Her illustrations have appeared in children's books and magazines.
Raised in New York and Paris, Robin Newman has been a practicing attorney and legal editor, but she prefers to write about witches, mice, pigs, and peacocks. She lives in New York with her husband, son, goldfish, and English Cocker Spaniel, who happens to have been born on the Fourth of July.
Originally from Ohio, Ingrid Palmer writes young adult fiction in the Colorado mountain town where she lives with her husband and two sons. When not writing books or enjoying the great outdoors, Ingrid works as a freelance editor. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and is a graduate of the Denver Publishing Institute. All Out of Pretty is Ingrid’s debut novel.
Danny Popovici's illustrations have appeared in many formats: animation, game, and comic art, but his favorite medium to tell stories is in the pages of magical picture books. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where there’s no shortage of mountains to hike, but he usually leaves his hammer and chisel at home. Manjhi Moves a Mountain is Danny’s debut. You can learn more about Danny at dannypopovici.com.
Barney Saltzberg is the author and illustrator of close to 50 books for children, including Beautiful Oops!, Arlo Needs Glasses, Andrew Drew and Drew, and the bestselling Touch and Feel Kisses series with over one million copies in print. Additionally, he’s recorded four albums of music for children.
James emerged from a humble home in Santa Maria, California, where his love for art came from countless hours of reading comics, playing video games, and 90's Saturday morning cartoons. After obtaining his general ed at a local community college he moved to the big city of San Francisco in search of following his dreams through schooling. He is currently doing freelance art after graduating from the Academy of Art University, with a BFA in Visual Development.
David is the author of over 50 math and science books, including How Much Is a Million?, G Is for Googol and If You Hopped Like a Frog. His math and science presentations have delighted children at over 1,000 schools in almost every state and many foreign countries. With Dwight Kuhn, David produced Where In the Wild? Camouflaged Creatures Concealed and Revealed, which won the SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Literature and the Animal Behavior Society's Outstanding Children's Book Award.
Lucy Scott is the best-selling author of Doodle Diary of a New Mom. She is the co-founder of a pre-production visualising studio called Treehouse 24 and has had her artwork exhibited in London, New York, Edinburgh, and Tbilisi. Busy, Busy is her first children's book. She lives in the UK.
Asa currently a PhD student in Astrophysics at Rice University, where his research seeks to explain how planets form and evolve by discovering what planetary systems are like throughout the galaxy. Specifically, he searches for newborn planets around other stars with the goal of bringing observational evidence to bear on current models of planet formation. Ultimately, his research tries to answer the question, "How did we get here?"
Muon Van is a critically-acclaimed picture book author. Her first book, In a Village by the Sea, won the Northern California Book Award for Best Picture Book and was selected as a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a Huffington Post Best Book of the Year, and a New York Public Library Best Book For Kids. Her second book, The Little Tree, received starred reviews from Kirkus and PW and was selected for the L.A. Times Holiday Books List.
Award-winning author Laurie Wallmark writes picture book biographies of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) as well as other types of children’s books. Her books have earned multiple starred trade reviews, been chosen as Junior Library Guild Selections, and received awards such as Outstanding Science Trade Book, Best STEM Book, Cook Prize Honor Book, Crystal Kite Award, Mathical Honor Book, and Parents’ Choice Gold Medal. Visit www.lauriewallmark.com and @lauriewallmark
A 2012 Harvard graduate and full-time writer, M.L. Windsor develops content for educational test prep companies and freelances for publishers, including a micropress and literary journal called Midwestern Gothic.
Shiella Witanto draws or paints all day long. She grew up in Indonesia, where her hometown of Bandung has the best bowl of chicken noodles in the world. She studied illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. No Steps Behind is her first book. After six years in the United States she was forced to return to Indonesia due to new immigration policies. She now lives in Jawa Barat, Indonesia and continues to make art every day.
Deborah Zemke puts words and pictures together in unexpected and lively ways. The author/illustrator of more than twenty children's books, including the popular Doodles at Dinner books and placemats, Deborah brings a serious sense of silliness to her work. She is a frequent contributor of Critter Crackups to Ranger Rick magazine, the designer of the font ITC ZemkeHand, and the illustrator of forty books for children and adults. She lives in the middle of the middle of the U.S. in Columbia, MO.