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 […]
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 […]
Lauren Gibaldi is a public librarian who’s been, among other things, a magazine editor, high school English teacher, bookseller, and circus aerialist (seriously). She has a BA in Literature and Master’s in Library and Information Studies. She lives in Orlando, Florida with her husband and daughters. Her books include THE NIGHT WE SAID YES, AUTOFOCUS, THIS TINY […]
Born in Lima, Peru, Natalia Sylvester Came to the U.S. at age four and grew up in Florida and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. She received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami and now works as a freelance writer in Texas. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, […]