Lauren Castillo

Lauren studied illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art and received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She is the author and illustrator of the 2015 Caldecott Honor–winning book, Nana in the City, and a new chapter book series, Our Friend Hedgehog. Lauren has also illustrated several critically acclaimed picture books, including Kirkus Prize–finalist Imagine by Juan Felipe Herrera, Twenty Yawns by Jane Smiley, and Yard Sale by Eve Bunting. She currently draws and dreams in Harrisburg, PA.

Ann Dee Ellis

Ann Dee (Andy) Ellis is an author of books for young readers. She loves popcorn, the mountains, her childhood afghan, and synchronized swimming. She teaches creative writing and literature at Brigham Young University.

Ann Dee has always loved writing. Her most memorable story, composed in the fifth grade, was a retelling of the famous 80’s movie Goonies. Ann Dee enjoys the movie Goonies for the location (Oregon coast!), the intrigue (a pirate map! skeletons! booby traps!) and the fact that one of the girls in the movie is also named Ann Dee (spelling is inconsequential). Ann Dee tries to write a little bit every day. She has written over 500 writing prompts for kids and adults.

Ann Dee was Little Orphan Annie for Halloween five years in a row. Ann Dee’s mom was a children’s librarian and read her books every night. Ann Dee is the youngest of nine children and now has one husband and five children of her own.

Candace Fleming

Candace Fleming awarded herself the Newbery Medal in fifth grade after scraping the gold sticker off the class copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond and pasting it onto her first novel—a ten-page, ten-chapter mystery called Who Done It? She’s been collecting awards (her own, not Elizabeth George Speare’s) ever since.

Today, Candace Fleming is the author of more than fifty books for  children and young adults, including the 2021 Sibert Medal-winning Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera, as well as the 2021 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award-winning The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh. A recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, she is also the  two-time winner of both the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, and the Sibert Honor. Her most recent titles are The Enigma Girls and Narwhal, Unicorn of the Arctic.

Jay Hosler

Jay Hosler is an American author, biologist, and cartoonist known for creating science-themed graphic novels and comics for children and young adults. He holds a PhD in biological sciences and is a professor of biology. Hosler’s work often combines scientific concepts with storytelling and illustration, aiming to make complex topics accessible and engaging for young readers.

He writes and draws graphic novels that focus on natural history, evolution, and insects. Lots and lots of insects. His goal is to use the compelling visual power of comics to illustrate the alien worlds that often go unnoticed and unappreciated.

Chad Morris and Shelly Brown

Chad Morris and Shelly Brown wrote Willa and the Whale, Squint, and Mustaches for Maddie. They have won the Buckeye Children’s and Teen Book Award, the Nebraska Book Award, and Foreword Review’s Book of the Year. They have also appeared on CNN and the Hallmark Channel.

Chad is also the author of the futuristic Cragbridge Hall trilogy (The Inventor’s Secret, The Avatar Battle, and The Impossible Race). He is the winner of the Utah Book Award and Foreword Review’s Silver Medal for Juvenile Fiction. Shelly loves to write books for children. In her spare time, she enjoys theater and traveling. In addition to her five children, she has three chickens and sixty-four Pez dispensers.

Kao Kalia Yang

Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses audiences and genres. Her children’s books center Hmong children and families who live in our world and who dream, hurt, and hope in it. Yang’s middle-grade debut fiction, The Diamond Explorer, contends with the narratives we are given and the ones we give. She is also a librettist for The Song Poet opera (commissioned by Minnesota Opera).

Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN America Literary Awards, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, as well as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Books of the Year, the Heartland Booksellers Award, and the Carter G. Woodson Book Award. She has also garnered seven Minnesota Book Awards and is the Star Tribune’s 2024 Artist of the Year. Yang holds an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Carleton College. She is a McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.