Misty Copeland
Misty Danielle Copeland (born September 10, 1982) is an American ballet dancer for American Ballet Theatre (ABT), one of the three leading classical ballet companies in the United States. On June 30, 2015, Copeland became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in ABT's 75-year history.
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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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Jacqueline Woodson
I used to say I’d be a teacher or a lawyer or a hairdresser when I grew up but even as I said these things, I knew what made me happiest was writing.
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I wrote on everything and everywhere. I remember my uncle catching me writing my name in graffiti on the side of a building. (It was not pretty for me when my mother found out.) I wrote on paper bags and my shoes and denim binders. I chalked stories across sidewalks and penciled tiny tales in notebook margins. I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.
I also told a lot of stories as a child. Not “Once upon a time” stories but basically, outright lies. I loved lying and getting away with it! There was something about telling the lie-story and -
Margarita Engle
Margarita Engle is a Cuban-American poet, novelist, and journalist whose work has been published in many countries. She lives with her husband in northern California.
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Matt de la Peña
Matt de la Peña is the New York Times best-selling, Newbery-medal-winning author of six young adult novels and four picture books. Matt received his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and his BA from the University of the Pacific, where he attended school on a full athletic scholarship for basketball. de la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. He teaches creative writing and visits high schools and colleges throughout the country.
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Visit Matt at: mattdelapena.com -
Derrick Barnes
Where I come from, no one dreams of becoming an author.
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I didn’t know any famous African American male authors. I didn’t actually meet one until I attended college. I wanted to be a football player, the next Sean Combs, or a rapper; anything that would instantly provide me with the riches I would need to “move my mama off of the block”. I was raised in a single parent household by my mother, the lovely Miss Catherine Barnes, along with my big brother, Anthony, in Kansas City, MO.
My first attempt at writing a real story was in the fifth grade. I think it was about a group of stray dogs trekking across the country to find a magic bone or something. I can’t remember. But I do remember what it felt like when I finished and read it. It felt power -
Loren Long
I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky in the 1970’s. We had no artists of any kind in the family. We didn’t know any artists. I liked sports, especially baseball. My mother read to me a lot. But I have to admit, my favorite subject in school was gym class. I also liked to draw. My parents encouraged me to keep drawing.
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Yuyi Morales
Yuyi Morales is the illustrator of Kathleen Krull’s Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, whose accolades include a Pura Belpré Award and a Christopher Medal, as well as the Pura Belpré Award-winning Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes. Born and raised in Mexico, she now lives in northern California.
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Melissa Sweet
There is more than one author with this name
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Melissa Sweet grew up in a suburban neighborhood that had lots of kids, kick-the-can games on summer nights, and Percy's candy store right nearby.
Later she received her Associate’s Degree from Endicott Junior College in Beverly, Massachusetts, and studied art at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Sweet began began illustrating children's books in 1986 and has illustrated more than 60 books. Her work can also be seen in magazines, on posters, children's toys and food packaging.
Sweet’s signature style of whimsical watercolors is often enhanced by collage art when she finds objects and details that are appropriate to the story.
Sweet lives with her husband and step-daughter in a small coastal Maine villa -
Angela DiTerlizzi
Angela DiTerlizzi is a mom, wife, and author who loves writing books for children. Her picture books include Some Pets, Some Bugs, Baby Love, and Just Add Glitter. She and her husband, bestselling author/illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, reside with their daughter in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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Adam Wallace
Adam Wallace is a New York Times, USA Today and Amazon Bestselling author of the How to Catch series!
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Adam's passion is to bring excitement and energy and humour and joy to children (of all ages!) through his books and videos.
He spends his non-writing time thinking about writing and going to as many live music shows as he can. He's also teaching himself piano, and plays golf too. -
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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Jory John
Jory John is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time E.B. White Read-Aloud Honor recipient.
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Jory's work includes the #1 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Good Egg, and the #2 New York Times bestselling picture book, The Bad Seed, both illustrated by Pete Oswald. He is also the author of the popular picture books, Penguin Problems and Giraffe Problems, both illustrated by Lane Smith, the award-winning Goodnight Already! series, illustrated by Benji Davies, the New York Times bestselling Terrible Two series, the recent picture books Quit Calling Me a Monster! (with Bob Shea), Can Somebody Please Scratch My Back? (with Liz Climo), and the international bestseller, All my friends are dead, among many other books for both -
Daniel Beaty
Daniel Koa Beaty is a visionary actor, singer, writer, and social entrepreneur who lives at the intersection of art, spirit, and social change. Raised in Dayton, Ohio, Daniel grew up the child of a heroin addicted, incarcerated father, and younger sibling to a brother addicted to crack cocaine. Daniel learned early on that the arts can help heal childhood trauma, transform pain into power, and inspire a new generation of change makers to dismantle the systemic racism and oppression at the core of the challenges Daniel, his father, brother, and so many Americans face.
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Daniel Koa Beaty has spent his life telling stories that share both the truth of who we are as people and his hope for a better world. He believes these stories have the power t -
Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers is an Emmy Award-winning writer and comedian best known for his work on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and formerly as head writer on “Saturday Night Live.” He is married and has three children.
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Kevin Noble Maillard
Kevin Maillard is Professor of Law at Syracuse University, a contributor to the New York Times and a co-founder of Black Stream Partners LLC. He has written for The Atlantic and has provided on-air commentary to ABC News and MSNBC. He is the debut author of Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, a picture book illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, which won the Sibert Medal and the American Indian Youth Literature Honor. An enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, he is based in Manhattan, NY.
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Brendan Wenzel
Brendan Wenzel is an author and illustrator based in upstate New York. His debut picture book, They All Saw a Cat, was a New York Times bestseller and the recipient of a 2017 Caldecott Honor. An ardent conservationist, he is a proud collaborator with many organizations working to ensure the future of wild places and threatened species.
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Andrea Wang
Andrea Wang is the award-winning author of Watercress (Caldecott Medal, Newbery Honor, APALA Award, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, JLG Gold Standard Selection, seven starred reviews), The Nian Monster (APALA Honor), Magic Ramen (Freeman Book Award Honor). Her debut middle grade novel, The Many Meanings of Meilan, was reviewed by the New York Times, has two starred reviews, and is also a JLG Gold Standard Selection. Her work explores culture, creative thinking, and identity. She is also the author of seven nonfiction titles for the library and school market. Andrea holds an M.S. in Environmental Science and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing for Young People. She lives in the Denver area with her family.
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Minh Lê
Minh Lê is the author of Drawn Together illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat and Let Me Finish! (named an NPR Best Book of 2016) illustrated by Isabel Roxas (both published by Disney-Hyperion). He is also writing Green Lantern: Legacy, a graphic novel (illustrated by Andie Tong) for the new DC Comics middle grade imprint, DC Zoom. As a member of the kidlit consortium The Niblings, he writes about children's literature at Bottom Shelf Books and for a variety of publications, including the New York Times, The Horn Book, and HuffPost.
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Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah is one of the most successful comedians in the world and was the host of the Emmy® Award-winning “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central for seven years. Under Trevor, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” broke free from the restraints of a 30-minute linear show, producing engaging social content, award-winning digital series, podcasts and more for its global audience. Last year, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” landed a record number of seven Emmy Award nominations.
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Trevor is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood” and its young readers adaptation, released in 2019, “It’s Trevor Noah: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood,” which also debuted as a New York Tim -
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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Jenn Bailey
Jenn Bailey is an author, editor, documentarian, blue-ribbon pie baker, and eager traveler. She received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Born and raised in Rhode Island, she now calls Kansas City home where she lives with her husband, three sons, and numerous cats and dogs. Jenn was inspired to write Henry's story after watching her own sons, one who is on the autism spectrum, navigate finding a friend - a process which took patience, time, and courage. But finding the right one was always, always worth it.
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Meghan Markle
Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, is a mother, wife, feminist, and activist. Through the nonprofit work of Archewell Foundation, she and her husband are committed to activating compassion in communities across the world. She currently resides in her home state of California with her family, two dogs and a growing flock of rescue chickens.
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Reyna Grande
Reyna Grande is the author of three novels, Across a Hundred Mountains, which received a 2007 American Book Award; Dancing with Butterflies, which received a 2010 International Latino Book Award, and A Ballad of Love and Glory, which was a Los Angeles Times Book Club selection in 2022. In her memoir, The Distance Between Us (Atria, 2012) Reyna recounts her experiences as a child left behind in Mexico when her parents emigrated to the U.S. in search of work, and her own journey to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at the age of nine. Its sequel, A Dream Called Home, was published in 2018. Her latest book is Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings, an anthology by and about undocumented American
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Miriam Landis
Miriam Landis is a faculty member at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. She was a LitCamp fellow, and an assistant editor at Simon & Schuster, Hyperion, and the Amazon Books team. A Stanford grad, she was also a student at the School of American Ballet and a professional ballerina with Miami City Ballet. When not writing, teaching, or dancing, she enjoys life on Lake Washington alongside her husband and four children. In addition to Lauren in the Limelight, she is the author of two young adult novels, Girl in Motion and Girl on Pointe (previously published as Breaking Pointe). Learn more at www.miriamlandis.com
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Chloe Angyal
Chloe Angyal, PhD, is the author of the non-fiction book Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers is Saving Ballet From Itself and the romance novels Pas de Don’t and Pointe of Pride. When she's not writing, you can find her reading, cooking for her friends and family, or rubbing the tummy of her extremely cute dog. She's from Sydney, Australia and lives in the Iowa City area.
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Gavin Larsen
Gavin Larsen, born and raised in New York City, received her professional dance training at the School of American Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and the New York School of Ballet. In 1992, Ms. Larsen joined Pacific Northwest Ballet under the direction of Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, leaving the company in 1999 to join the Alberta Ballet, directed by Mikko Nissinen. In 2002, she performed with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet as a soloist at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. After briefly working as a freelance artist, in 2003 Ms. Larsen was invited to join Oregon Ballet Theatre as a principal dancer by then artistic director Christopher Stowell.
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Over the course of her career, Ms. Larsen danced prominent roles in ballets b -
Noel Streatfeild
Mary Noel Streatfeild, known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author best known and loved for her children's books, including Ballet Shoes and Circus Shoes. She also wrote romances under the pseudonym Susan Scarlett .
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She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.
During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospi -
Barney Saltzberg
Barney Saltzberg is the author and illustrator of close to 50 books for children, including Beautiful Oops!, Arlo Needs Glasses, Good Egg, Cornelius P. Mud , Crazy Hair Day and the bestselling Touch and Feel Kisses series with over 800,000 copies in print. He has two new releases, Tea With Grandpa and Chengdu Could Not Would Not Fall Asleep coming this spring.
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Additionally, he’s recorded four CDs of music for children. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two dogs. -
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Michael S. Bandy
Michael S. Bandy caught the writing bug when his third-grade teacher surprised him with a set of Dr. Seuss books. He’s been writing plays, screenplays, and books ever since. He lives in Los Angeles and is involved in a number of children’s charities.
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Meghan Markle
Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, is a mother, wife, feminist, and activist. Through the nonprofit work of Archewell Foundation, she and her husband are committed to activating compassion in communities across the world. She currently resides in her home state of California with her family, two dogs and a growing flock of rescue chickens.
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Michaela DePrince
Michaela Mabinty DePrince was a Sierra Leonean-American ballet dancer who danced with the Boston Ballet.
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DePrince rose to fame after starring in the documentary First Position in 2011, which followed her and other young ballet dancers as they prepared to compete at the Youth America Grand Prix. In 2013, DePrince danced with the Dance Theatre of Harlem as the youngest dancer in the history of the company, and, in the same year, was a soloist with the Dutch National Ballet.
With her adoptive mother, Elaine DePrince, she authored the book Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina (2014). From 2016 to 2024, she was a goodwill ambassador with the Amsterdam-based organization War Child. -
Daniel Beaty
Daniel Koa Beaty is a visionary actor, singer, writer, and social entrepreneur who lives at the intersection of art, spirit, and social change. Raised in Dayton, Ohio, Daniel grew up the child of a heroin addicted, incarcerated father, and younger sibling to a brother addicted to crack cocaine. Daniel learned early on that the arts can help heal childhood trauma, transform pain into power, and inspire a new generation of change makers to dismantle the systemic racism and oppression at the core of the challenges Daniel, his father, brother, and so many Americans face.
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Daniel Koa Beaty has spent his life telling stories that share both the truth of who we are as people and his hope for a better world. He believes these stories have the power t -
Lizzy Rockwell
Lizzy Rockwell is an illustrator whose artwork can be seen in picture books, magazines, games and on walls. She studied art and art history at Connecticut College, and drawing and illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
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Lizzy is the illustrator of over 25 children's books by a variety of authors including her mother, Anne Rockwell. She is the author/illustrator of eleven books including The All-Together Quilt, Plants Feed Me, How Do You Feel?, Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition, and The Busy Body Book: A Kid's Guide to Fitness.
Lizzy has two grown sons, and lives and works in Bridgeport, CT with her husband, Ken Alcorn, a high school social studies teacher. Lizzy likes to quilt, cook, hike, paddle, and -
Jennifer Homans
Jennifer Homans is the Dance Critic for The New Yorker. She is the author of Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century (2022), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet (2010), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and among the NYT 10 Best Books of the Year.
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Homans was a professional dancer and performed with the Pacific Northwest Ballet before earning a BA at Columbia University and a PhD in Modern European History at New York University, where she is now a Distinguished Scholar in Residence and the Founding Director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts. -
Anna Mitchael
Anna Mitchael is a Texas-based author who has spent the last 20 years working as a writer and creative director in ad agencies across the country, deputy editor of Magnolia Journal, and ghostwriter.
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In 2018, Anna’s life took a turn when she returned to the faith she had left as a child. This experience, and the years leading up to it, became the basis for her third book, They Will Tell You the World Is Yours: On Little Rebellions and Finding Your Way. This collection of 85 vignettes tracks a fictional woman's life from birth through a spiritual awakening.
For more of Anna's writing, you can subscribe to her free substack LIttle Rebellions or visit annamitchael.com. -
Debbie Allen
Actor, director, dancer/choreographer and singer, Debbie Allen's career has touched nearly every facet of the entertainment industry.
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Allen's Broadway career as a dancer, singer and actor began in the chorus of "Purlie". She next appeared in "Raisin", then in the 1979 production West Side Story", for which she won a prestigious Drama Desk Award, as well as, her first Tony Award nomination. Allen received another Tony Award nomination in 1986 for her role as Bob Fosse's "Sweet Charity".
Allen's choreography career soared in 1980 with the international hit TV series "Fame". In 1988 she went behind the scenes to choreograph the new American Musical "Carrie with the Royal Shakespeare Company" and has continued to devote herself to that discipline -
Jennifer Fosberry
Jennifer Fosberry is a science geek turned children's book author. After working in the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley and running away to Costa Rica for a few years, she returned to the San Francisco Bay area to read, write, raise kids, and get out of doing the housework. She lives with her patient husband, her three darling children, and her two little dogs, too.
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Karen Ehrhardt
Karen Ehrhardt doesn’t play an instrument and can’t sing a lick. But she’s probably listening to music right now at her home in the California redwoods, with her husband, their bouncing baby boy, and their dog.
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Karen does assemblies for Preschool, and Kindergarten through 6th grade. Karen does writing workshops with students in grades 3-6. Karen is available to travel to schools throughout California and the U.S. Please contact Connecting Authors for specific dates (866-528-9269 - www.connectingauthors.com).
Karen's most recent mention in Publisher's Weekly :
"Jazzed About Reading - Every student at Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School in Oakland, Calif...received an early holiday present a few weeks ago: a signed copy of This Jazz Man -
Paul Rusesabagina
Paul Rusesabagina is a Rwandan human rights activist. He worked as the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, during a period in which it housed 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees fleeing the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide. None of these refugees were hurt or killed during the attacks.
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