Kevin Johnson
Kevin is author of the critically-acclaimed, CAPE (Roaring Brook Press, 2023), SLAYER BOWL (Sack of Lit, 2025), WHO HQ: LOUIS ARMSTRONG - WHO MADE MUSIC ON THE MISSISSIPPI? (Penguin, 2026), and HOWIE HACKIT (First Second, 2027).
Kevin has been featured in the New York Times, NPR, and Oprah Daily.
Kevin has a Bachelors in Film from Temple University. He loves music, movies, retro gaming, and reading. While he enjoys traveling and finding new inspiration for his tales, Kevin will always consider his birthplace, Philly, home.
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Vicki Johnson
Vicki Johnson's debut picture book Molly's Tuxedo illustrated by Gillian Reid and published by Little Bee Books (June 27, 2023), garnered multiple accolades: 2024 NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children Recommended Book, a CBC Top Ten Teacher Favorites Awards selection, 2024 ALA Rainbow List Selection, and a 2023 Ontario Library Association Top Ten 'Best Bets' Picture Books selection among others. Johnson's second book with the same creative team, Mac Wears a Hat, is available for preorder now. It releases April, 2026.
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Born and raised in rural GA, Johnson is a first-gen graduate of Smith College and Emory Law School, and also studied in the Writing for Children & Young Adults MFA program at VCFA. Follow her on Insta, T -
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Joy Harjo
Bio Joy Harjo
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Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. She has released four award-winning CD's of original music and won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year. She performs nationally and internationally solo and with her band, The Arrow Dynamics. She has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, in venues in every major U.S. city and internationally. Most recently she performed We Were There When Jazz Was Invented at the Chan Centre at UBC in Vancouver, BC, and appeared at the San Miguel Writer’s Conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her one-woman show, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, which features guitarist Larry Mitchell premiered in Los Angeles in 2009, w -
Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford is a children's book author and poet who mines the past for family stories, traditions, and struggles. A number of CAROLE's books tell the stories of African-American historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, and Billie Holiday. Other books recount historical events such as the Greensboro Sit-ins and the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. CAROLE's books have received a wide variety of awards, including a Caldecott Honour for “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People To Freedom”.
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Marla Frazee
Marla Frazee was awarded a Caldecott Honor for All the World and A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Picture Book for The Farmer and the Clown. She is the author-illustrator of Roller Coaster, Walk On!, Santa Claus the World’s Number One Toy Expert, The Boss Baby, and Boot & Shoe, as well as the illustrator of many other books including The Seven Silly Eaters, Stars, the NYT bestselling Clementine series, and God Got a Dog. Marla has three grown sons, a Little Free Library in her front yard, and a studio in her back yard under an avocado tree.
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Kwame Alexander
Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and New York Times Bestselling author of 21 books, including The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American literature for Children, the Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor, The NCTE Charlotte Huck Honor, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, and the Passaic Poetry Prize. Kwame writes for children of all ages. His other works include Surf's Up, a picture book; Booked, a middle grade novel; and He Said She Said, a YA novel.
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Kwame believes that poetry can change the world, and he uses it to inspire and empower young people through his PAGE TO STAGE Writing and Publishing Program released by Scholastic. A regular speaker at colleges and confere -
Loren Long
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Carin Berger
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Matt Dinniman
Matt Dinniman is the best-selling writer and artist from Gig Harbor, Washington. He is the published author of dozens of short stories and a gaggle of books. In addition, his art publications—from greeting cards to stationery kits to calendars—can be found in boutique and stationery shops around the world. Also, he strongly feels like a pretentious twat when he writes about himself in third person.
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Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. After earning a BA in English from The University of Maryland, College Park, Jason Reynolds moved to Brooklyn, New York, where you can often find him walking the four blocks from the train to his apartment talking to himself. Well, not really talking to himself, but just repeating character names and plot lines he thought of on the train, over and over again, because he’s afraid he’ll forget it all before he gets home.
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Cori Doerrfeld
Cori Doerrfeld lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband and two children. She received her undergrad degree in Studio Art from St. Olaf College and her Post Baccalaureate from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She has several published titles including many self authored/self illustrated books.
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Matthew Cordell
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Kyle Lukoff
Kyle Lukoff writes books for kids and other people.
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Monica Arnaldo
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Julie Leung
JULIE LEUNG is an award-winning author of numerous children’s books. Her picture book, The Truth About Dragons is a Caldecott Honor and winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. By day, she works in book publishing. She was raised in the sleepy suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, though it may be more accurate to say she grew up in Oz and came of age in Middle-earth.
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Corey R. Tabor
Corey R. Tabor grew up in Wyoming, where he once spent the night in a cave by an underground waterfall. He now lives with his wife in Seattle, where he draws and reads and explores. Please visit him at coreyrtabor.com.
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from https://www.readbrightly.com/meet-ill... -
Vashti Harrison
Vashti Harrison, author and illustrator of the bestselling Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History, is an artist, author, and filmmaker with a passion for storytelling. She earned her MFA in film and video from California Institute of the Arts, where she snuck into animation and illustration classes to learn from Disney and DreamWorks legends. There she rekindled a love for drawing and painting. Now she uses her love for both film and illustration to craft beautiful stories for children.
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Amanda Gorman
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Traci Sorell
Best-selling author and Cherokee Nation citizen Traci Sorell writes inclusive, award-winning fiction and nonfiction in a variety of formats for young people. In 2023, she shares Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series, a Kirkus Reviews starred nonfiction picture book biography illustrated by Arigon Starr, and Mascot, a middle grade fiction novel-in-verse co-authored with Charles Waters. Traci is a two-time Sibert Medal and Orbis Pictus honoree for her nonfiction work. Her first five books have received awards from the American Indian Library Association. Learn more at www.tracisorell.com.
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Bess Kalb
Bess Kalb is an Emmy Award-nominated writer for the Jimmy Kimmel Live! television show and journalist with The New Yorker magazine. She is the author of the best-selling book, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story, which recounts the life of her grandmother, Bobby Bell.
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Antwan Eady
Originally from Garnett, South Carolina, Antwan Eady is author of the award-winning picture book Nigel and the Moon, illustrated by Gracey Zhang.
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Down the dirt roads of South Carolina’s Low Country is where Eady’s understanding of—and appreciation for—family, community, and nature unfolded. Now he shares those stories with the world. His upcoming titles include: The Last Stand, Poemhood: Our Black Revival (a Young Adult poetry anthology), The Gathering Table, Micah’s Rise, and Before the Bridge.
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X. Fang
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Cherry Mo
Cherry Mo grew up in Hong Kong and moved to the United States at the age of ten. HOME IN A LUNCHBOX is her debut picture book and was inspired by her first days of school in America. Cherry writes and illustrates stories that she hopes bring young readers a sense of comfort and belonging.
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Praises for HOME IN A LUNCHBOX:
Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
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Other works include Barefoot Books WATER: A Deep Dive of Discovery (2021), which takes young readers on a round-the-world tour of our planet's precious and powerful water; PATIENCE, PATCHES!, (2022) a tale about a dog and a new baby; MEL BROOKS: A Little Golden Book Biography (2024); HEY, HEY, HAY! (A Tale of Bales and the Machines That Make Them) (Holiday House 2018), and DIET FOR A CHANGING CLIMATE: Food for Thought (Lerner/TFCB 2018), which seeks to inspire older kids to action with facts an -
Andi Diehn
Andi Diehn graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College, relied on a freelance writing career when her children were young and childcare was expensive, and now works as a children’s book editor and marketer at Nomad Press. She has written eleven nonfiction books for the educational market, and her fictional picture book on mental illness, MAMA’S DAYS, is forthcoming this year from Reycraft Books. She has six more nonfiction picture books scheduled to release over the next two years.
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Andi also works as a bookseller at her local indie in rural New Hampshire, where she lives with her husband, three sons, and lots of pets. -
Kevin Tseng
Kevin Tseng (which rhymes with “sun”) is the author of ONE SNOWY MORNING and the author-illustrator of NED’S NEW HOME, both picture books. He grew up in Thousand Oaks, California and earned degrees in biology and illustration at Washington University in St. Louis. He currently lives in Whitefish, Montana, where he continues to write and paint. See what’s new at www.kevintseng.com and on Instagram @drawkevindraw.
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