Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond's first book Powder Necklace (Washington Square Press 2010) is a YA tome loosely inspired by her experience attending a girls’ boarding school in the Central Region of Ghana, West Africa. Publishers Weekly called the book “a winning debut” while Library Journal recommended it "for readers who enjoyed Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus".
In 2014, she was included among some of the most promising African authors under 39 in the Hay Festival-Rainbow Book Club Project Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara (Bloomsbury). The Africa39 anthology was published in celebration of UNESCO's designation of Port Harcourt, Nigeria as 2014 World Book Capital. Most rece
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Greg Pizzoli
Greg Pizzoli is the author and illustrator of The Watermelon Seed, winner of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, Number One Sam, Templeton Gets His Wish, Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower, and coming in April 2016, Good Night Owl. He lives in Philadelphia.
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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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Ore Agbaje-Williams
ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS is a British-Nigerian writer and editor from North London who has written for gal—dem, Glamour UK and Wasafiri magazine. Her fiction writing has also been featured on Reflex Fiction. Her first novel, The Three of Us, was published by Jonathan Cape (UK), Putnam (US) and Penguin Random House Canada in May 2023.
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Laurel Snyder
Laurel Snyder is the author of six children's novels, "Orphan Island," "Seven Stories Up," "Bigger than a Bread Box," "Penny Dreadful," "Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains OR The Search for a Suitable Princess" and "Any Which Wall" (Random House) as well as many picture books, including "Charlie & Mouse," "The Forever Garden," "Swan, the life and dance of Anna Pavlova," and "Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher."
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A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a former Michener Fellow, she also writes books for grownups, and is the author of a book of poems, "The Myth of the Simple Machines" (No Tell Books) and a chapbook, "Daphne & Jim: a choose-your-own-adventure biography in verse (Burnside Review Press) and the editor of an anthology, "H -
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson was the guitarist and principal songwriter in The Band. He grew up in Toronto and on the Brantford Six Nations Reserve before heading to Arkansas to join Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. He has produced many movie soundtracks for Martin Scorsese, including Raging Bull, and others, and continues to record as a solo artist. His most recent record, How to Become Clairvoyant, came out in 2011. His support of NA Native Music has been galvanizing. Robertson is coauthor of the children’s book Legends, Icons & Rebels, and author of the memoir Testimony, and the children's book, Hiawatha and the Peacemaker. He lives in Los Angeles and visits Canada often.
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Angela Joy
Angela Joy was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN. Before graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota, Angela attended New York University and Spelman College. With a move to Los Angeles, CA, Angela traveled extensively as a background vocalist, also working in television and movie soundtracks.
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Currently, Angela is an author, substitute teacher, Girl Scout Cookie Manager, Troop Leader, 5th grade book club moderator, and music lover. She is the co-founder of the McGaugh International Culture Club. She lives in Southern California with her husband and two children, but will always call Minneapolis home. Black Is a Rainbow Color is her first book. -
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 -
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 -
Adam Rubin
Adam Rubin is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of ten critically-acclaimed picture books, including the Those Darn Squirrels trilogy, Dragons Love Tacos, Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel, Secret Pizza Party, Robo-Sauce and El Chupacabras (winner of the 2020 Texas Blue Bonnet award). In between writing projects, he designs and collects optical illusions, puzzles and games. His favorite color is blue, his favorite food is fried chicken, and his favorite animal is the otter. Adam currently lives in Brooklyn.
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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 -
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 -
Matt Phelan
Matt Phelan made his illustrating debut with Betty G. Birney’s The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster). Since then he has illustrated many picture books and novels for young readers, including Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli (Dial), Very Hairy Bear by Alice Schertle (Harcourt), and The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron (Simon & Schuster) winner of the 2007 Newbery Medal.
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Matt studied film and theater in college with the goal of one day writing and directing movies. But his first love was always drawing, and the more he saw the wonderful world of children’s books, the more he realized that this was the place for him. Being an illustrator is in many ways like being an actor, director, cinematographer, costumer, a -
Angela Joy
Angela Joy was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN. Before graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota, Angela attended New York University and Spelman College. With a move to Los Angeles, CA, Angela traveled extensively as a background vocalist, also working in television and movie soundtracks.
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Currently, Angela is an author, substitute teacher, Girl Scout Cookie Manager, Troop Leader, 5th grade book club moderator, and music lover. She is the co-founder of the McGaugh International Culture Club. She lives in Southern California with her husband and two children, but will always call Minneapolis home. Black Is a Rainbow Color is her first book. -
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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Greg Pizzoli
Greg Pizzoli is the author and illustrator of The Watermelon Seed, winner of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, Number One Sam, Templeton Gets His Wish, Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower, and coming in April 2016, Good Night Owl. He lives in Philadelphia.
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Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Maggie Tokuda-Hall (1984 -) is the author of Also an Octopus, The Mermaid the Witch and the Sea, its sequel The Siren, The Spy and The Song, Squad, and Love in the Library.
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She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, children, and objectively perfect dog. -
Doug Salati
Doug Salati is an illustrator living in New York City. He received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts and was a 2015 Sendak Fellow. His illustrations have received recognition from American Illustration, 3x3, and the Society of Illustrators. In a Small Kingdom, written by Tomie dePaola, is his debut picture book.
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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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Michaela Goade
Michaela Goade is an American illustrator. She won the 2021 Caldecott Medal for her illustrations in the book We Are Water Protectors written by Carole Lindstrom. She is the first Native American to win the award. She is of the Tlingit and Haida tribes.
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Young Vo
Young Vo learned to draw before he could write. He drew a lot of characters, then began to write stories for them. There were not many job choices that he could make, so he decided to be an anuimator, illustrator, and author. Now he writes and draws his stories before the sun rises, then during the day, he animates.
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Sarai Johnson
I’m Sarai (pronounced Sara).
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I’m a writing educator in the DC-Metropolitan Area with more than 10 years of experience. My career started in lifestyle journalism; I worked for The Indianapolis Star, The Alexandria Gazette, and DC Modern Luxury. I’ve worked with writing nonprofits Shout Mouse Press and Writopia Lab. I’ve also taught writing at Howard University and American University where I earned degrees in Journalism and Literature, respectively. I’m currently teaching full-time at Howard University while working on a second novel.
I grew up in the South (mostly Nashville, Tennessee) where I spent a lot of time hanging out by creeks and eating catfish (some of my favorite hobbies to this day).
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Foluso Agbaje
Foluso Agbaje is a British-Nigerian writer exploring how choices and connections shape who we are. After studying at the Faber Academy, she completed her debut novel, The Parlour Wife. Her background in Accounting, an MSc in Management and Human Resources from LSE, and work in Finance and HR offer perspectives that continue to inform her storytelling. Away from her desk, Foluso enjoys visiting bookshops and museums, watching period dramas, and seeking inspiration in new places.
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Young Vo
Young Vo learned to draw before he could write. He drew a lot of characters, then began to write stories for them. There were not many job choices that he could make, so he decided to be an anuimator, illustrator, and author. Now he writes and draws his stories before the sun rises, then during the day, he animates.
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James E. Ransome
James E. Ransome has illustrated more than fifty books for children and has won the Coretta Scott King Award for The Creation (by James Weldon Johnson). His work has also earned him a Coretta Scott King Honor, IBBY Honour, ALA Notable, NAACP Image Award, Bank Street best Book of the Year, and Rip Van Winkle Award. He lives in upstate New York with his wife, author Lesa Cline-Ransome, and their family.
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Nabela Noor
Nabela Noor is a first-generation Bangladeshi American creator, activist, and entrepreneur. As a self-love advocate, Nabela utilizes her platforms to empower and inspire millions of people around the world to love the skin they’re in. Her work centers around her passion for representation and diversity with a commitment to uplifting stories and characters who are often unseen and underrepresented. Globally recognized for her “Pockets of Peace” content, you can learn more about the power of self-love through self-care on Nabela’s TikTok and Instagram @Nabela.
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Chris Butterworth
CHRIS BUTTERWORTH is the author of more than seventy nonfiction books for children on such diverse subjects as influenza, Antarctic exploration, and Ancient Egypt. "A sea horse looks as magical as a mermaid," she says, "but sea horses really exist. We need to know as much as we can about them, so we can protect them."
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Rob Sanders
Rob Sanders does not work as a telephone sales rep, a loading dock worker, a trophy engraver, or an editor. But he used to. Rob is not a cowboy, a ballerina, an alien, or a temper-tantrum-throwing toddler. But he writes about them. Rob is a picture book author, a writing teacher, a blogger, and a great uncle. He worked for fifteen years in religious educational publishing as a writer, editor, editorial manager, and product designer. These days he teaches elementary kids about books and words and reading and writing, and writes books for those same kids.
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Rob’s first picture book, COWBOY CHRISTMAS, was released by Golden Books/Random House in 2012. OUTER SPACE BEDTIME RACE was released by Random House Children’s Books in January 2015. RUBY RO -
Samuel Kolawole
Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, won the 2025 Whiting Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the International Book Awards, was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and is currently a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.
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Other honors for his work include being a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, and the UK's The First Novel Prize.
He studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa; is a graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts; and earned his PhD in -
Michaela Goade
Michaela Goade is an American illustrator. She won the 2021 Caldecott Medal for her illustrations in the book We Are Water Protectors written by Carole Lindstrom. She is the first Native American to win the award. She is of the Tlingit and Haida tribes.
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Ama Asantewa Diaka
Ama Asantewa Diaka is a Ghanaian poet, storyteller, and spoken word artist who performs as Poetra Asantewa. She is the author of the chapbook, You Too Will Know Me, and the debut poetry collection, Woman, Eat Me Whole, and her poems and fiction have appeared in print and online. She recently completed an MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Ghana.
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Hannah Salyer
Hannah Salyer is an award-winning illustrator, author, and mixed-media artist whose work celebrates the profound connections between humans and the natural world. Recognized by American Illustration and the Society of Illustrators, her books, including PACKS and ANCESTORY, have earned critical acclaim for their breathtaking visuals and compelling narratives. A Maurice Sendak Fellow and educator at Parsons School of Design, Hannah also co-directs Underland Gallery. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, where her art continues to inspire a deeper appreciation for our shared planet.
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See more of her work on her website https://hannahsalyer.com/ -
Tonya Bolden
Author and publisher Tonya Wilyce Bolden was born on March 1, 1959, in New York City to Georgia Bolden, a homemaker, and Willie Bolden, a garment center shipping manager. Bolden grew up in Harlem in a musical family and loved to read; she attended Public M.E.S. 146, an elementary school in Manhattan, and then graduated from the Chapin School, a private secondary school, in Manhattan in 1976. Bolden attended Princeton University in New Jersey, and, in 1981, obtained her B.A. degree in Slavic languages and literature with a Russian focus. Bolden was also a University Scholar and received the Nicholas Bachko, Jr. Scholarship Prize.
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Upon graduating from Princeton University, Bolden began working as a salesperson for Charles Alan, Incorporated, a -
Elizabeth Spires
Elizabeth Spires is the author of five collections of poetry as well as several books for children. She has been the recipient a Whiting Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1998 she received the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Maryland Author Award from the Maryland Library Association. Her poems have been featured on National Public Radio and have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The New Criterion, and in many anthologies, including Contemporary American Poetry (7th edition) and The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. She lives in Baltimore
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Jane Bahk
Jane Park (formerly Bahk) won Lee & Low's New Voices Award for Juna's Jar, which was also recognized with the Asian/Pacific American Library Association Award for Literature and as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Literacy Association. Juna and Appa was inspired by her memories of growing up in her family's dry-cleaning shop. Park lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Tracy Nelson Maurer
Tracy Nelson Maurer has written books for children and young adults for more than 15 years. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time outdoors with her family near Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Keila V. Dawson
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Keila V. Dawson worked as a community organizer, educator, and advocate for children with disabilities before becoming a children’s book author. A two-time Ohioana finalist, Dawson writes fiction and nonfiction picture books. Her 2024 Green Earth Book Award winning title, NO WORLD TOO BIG: YOUNG PEOPLE FIGHTING GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE is a companion title to the Special Interest Group International Reading Association Book Award-winning title, NO VOICE TOO SMALL: FOURTEEN YOUNG AMERICANS MAKING HISTORY and the forthcoming NO BRAIN THE SAME: YOUNG NEURODIVERGENT ACTIVISTS SHAPING OUR FUTURE. (2026) She is the author of OPENING THE ROAD: VICTOR HUGO GREEN AND HIS GREEN BOOK, THE KING CAKE BABY, and YUMBO GUMBO which also includes a Spanish edit -
Meghan Mccarthy
Children's book author of many wonderful fiction and nonfiction books for young readers, including the below following. Meghan's books have won the IRA-CBC Children's Choice, ALA Notable, Kirkus Reviews Reviewer's Choice, Booklist Best Books, NYPL 100 Best Books, SLJ Best Books, and so on. Blah blah blah, what Meghan really wants to do is drive really fast and jump in really long grass until she gets grass stains. She'd prefer to remain child-like because children don't have to pay bills.
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The Wall Street Journal described Meghan’s art as “goofy yet somehow dignified.” Meghan is much the same way. By the age of 40 she plans to wear a boa at all times and on all occasions. -
Jonathan Bentley
As a little boy, Jonathan Bentley liked football and drawing. When he was about eight years old he realised he wasn’t going to be good enough to play football for Leeds United, so he concentrated on drawing instead.
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When he left school he studied at Brighton Polytechnic. Jonathan worked as a builder’s labourer and kitchen hand for many years before he became a full-time illustrator, and he worked in London and Sydney before moving to Brisbane, Australia.
Jonathan has been an Editorial Illustrator at the Courier Mail newspaper for ten years, and has illustrated books for Margaret Wild, The Wiggles and Andrew Daddo.
Jonathan likes to work with a range of materials including acrylics, oils, and line and watercolour, and he looks forward to the d -
Kevin Young
Kevin Young is an American poet heavily influenced by the poet Langston Hughes and the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (1992-1994), and received his MFA from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective.
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Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Young is the author of Most Way Home, To Repel Ghosts, Jelly Roll, Black Maria, For The Confederate Dead, Dear Darkness, and editor of Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers; Blues Poems; Jazz Poems and John Berryman's Selected Poems.
His Black Cat Blues, originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review, was included in The Be -
Tami Lewis Brown
Tami Lewis Brown is the author of the novel The Map of Me and the picture book Soar, Elinor!, illustrated by François Roca. She holds an M.F.A. in writing for children from Vermont College and lives in Washington, D.C.
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Samara Cole Doyon
Samara Cole Doyon is both a second--generation Haitian American and a deeply rooted Mainer, with half of the roots of her family tree reaching generations deep into the soil of the Pine Tree State. She is a freelance writer, teacher, wife, and mother. She has been a regular contributor at Black Girl In Maine Media and has been featured in the "Deep Water" poetry column of the Portland Press Herald.
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Marta Magellan
Marta Magellan was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and has lived in Miami, Florida since the age of seven. She taught Composition, Creative Writing, and Survey of Children’s Literature at Miami Dade College, where she was a full professor and award-winning adviser to Miambiance, the campus literary arts magazine. She has written travel articles for magazines and newspapers but her love for children and profound interest in nature has produced several award-winning children’s books about wild animals, many in collaboration with her brother, Mauro Magellan, an illustrator who has produced work for Albert Whitman, Pelican Press, Scholastic, among others. She has also written children's books for the educational market and a few travel articles
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Julie Völk
Julie Völk, geb. 1985 in Wien, wuchs im ländlichen Niedersachsen auf. Sie studierte an der HAW in Hamburg Illustration. Ihr Debüt Das Löwenmädchen ist gleich mit dem Nachwuchspreis Serafina und dem Troisdorfer Bilderbuchpreis 2015 ausgezeichnet worden. Die Künstlerin lebt mit ihrer Familie in Niederösterreich. (Quelle: Amazon.de)
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Margaret Peot
Margaret is thrilled to present her new picture book from Muddy Boots, AT NIGHT. What animals forage by night and sleep by day? This children’s picture book describes the nocturnal lives of nine common animals: foxes, porcupines, raccoons, skunks, opossums, bobcats, owls, mice, and rabbits. Join the adult animals guiding their children through the forest during the dark of night. The book includes information on the common names of the animal’s offspring (i.e. fox:kit).
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Margaret's picture book CROW MADE A FRIEND, one of Holiday House's acclaimed I LIKE TO READ series, received a starred Kirkus review and was on the Kirkus Best Books of 2015 list. Her non-fiction kid's book INKBLOT: DRIP, SPLAT AND SQUISH YOUR WAY TO CREATIVITY (Boyds Mills P