Gabriella Aldeman works with education nonprofits and children's book authors and publishers to translate English content into Spanish. She has a mission to make educational content accessible to Spanish-speaking families and engage readers with rhymes, alliterations, and worlds of wonder. She also writes for young people. She is the author of the picture book Paula's Patches. 

Elana K. Arnold is the award-winning author of many books for children and teens, including the Sydney Taylor and National Jewish Book Award winner The Blood Years, the Printz Honor winner Damsel, the National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of, and the Global Read Aloud selection A Boy Called Bat. She is a member of the faculty at Hamline University’s MFA in writing for children and young adults program and lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband, two children, and a menagerie of animals. You can find her online at elanakarnold.com. 

Winsome Bingham is a soul food connoisseur, master cook, US Army war and disabled veteran, and the author of Coretta Scott King Honor Book and New York Times Best Book of the Year, Soul Food Sunday (illustrated by C.G. Esperanza), The Walk (illustrated by E.B. Lewis), and her new book Missing Momma (illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell). Readers can also look forward to a new companion to Soul Food Sunday, Fish Fry Friday, coming in May 2025. Winsome received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and has more than 15 years of teaching experience. She lives in Connecticut. 

Gennifer Choldenko is a New York Times bestselling and Newbery Honor Award-winning author. She's also the youngest of four siblings and was nicknamed "snot-nose" as a child. So perhaps it's not surprising that her books often feature quirky and tender depictions of brothers and sisters. Her most loved titles include: Al Capone Does My Shirts and three other "Tales from Alcatraz", Notes from a Liar and Her Dog, Orphan Eleven, One-Third Nerd, and Chasing Secrets. 

Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of more than twenty books for young readers from picture books to novels for middle graders and young adults, in­cluding the award-winning Finding Langston trilogy. Her work has received a plethora of honors, including dozens of starred reviews, NAACP Image Award nominations, a Coretta Scott King honor, the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a Christopher Award. Lesa's books have been named to ALA Notable Books and Bank Street Best Children’s Book lists, and she lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York. One Big Open Sky is Lesa’s first novel in verse. Learn more at LesaClineRansome.com.

Kari Lavelle is the author of Butt or Face? Volume 1 (Sourcebooks, 2023), We Move the World (HarperCollins, 2021) as well as the forthcoming An Ode to Grapefruit – a picture book biography of James Earl Jones (Knopf, 2024). She is a member of SCBWI and 12x12 and enjoys taking classes at the Writing Barn. 

Allie Millington first wrote Olivetti on her own antique typewriter, who turned out to have an awful lot to say. She lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and their fluffy dog, Crumpet. You can frequently find her doodling in her writing shed, or foraging in the woods. 

NoNieqa Ramos is an educator and storyteller who knows diverse books written by BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors save lives. Their work includes the young adult novels The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary, The Truth Is, and They Thought They Buried Us, as well as several picture books including Hair Story and Best Believe. Connect with them at www.nonieqaramos.com or on the Latinx collective www.lasmusasbooks.com. 

Randy Ribay is a Filipino American author of young adult fiction. His novel Patron Saints of Nothing was a finalist for the National Book Award and the LA Times Book Prize. Randy was also a contributor to the Printz Award–winning anthology The Collectors, edited by A. S. King. His other works include An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes, After the Shot Drops, and Chronicles of the Avatar: The Reckoning of Roku. His latest novel Everything We Never Had published in 2024 and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Born in the Philippines and raised in the Midwest, Randy currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, son, and cat-like dog. 

Carole Boston Weatherford, the 2024 Young People’s Poet Laureate, is a New York Times best-selling author and poet, and was named the 2019 Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award winner. Her numerous books for children include the Newbery Honor Book BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom, illustrated by Michele Wood; the Coretta Scott King Author Award winner Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, illustrated by Floyd Cooper; Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrated by Ekua Holmes, which was also a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book; and Outspoken: Paul Robeson, Ahead of His Time and the critically acclaimed Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library, both illustrated by Eric Velasquez. Carole Boston Weatherford lives in Maryland.