Pauline Vaeluaga Smith
Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith is an author and educationalist. Born in the small rural town of Mataura, Pauline is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, Scottish and Irish descent. Smith's first book My New Zealand Story: Dawn Raid, was a finalist at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young People in the Esther Glen, Junior Fiction and Best First Book categories. It was the winner of the Best First Book for 2018.
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Ruth Shaw
Ruth Shaw runs two wee bookshops in remote Manapouri in the far south of New Zealand.
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Malia Maunakea
Malia Maunakea is a Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) writer who grew up in the rainforest of the Big Island before moving to a valley in Oʻahu in seventh grade to attend a school founded by a Hawaiian princess (Imua, Kamehameha!).
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Though she relocated to Colorado for college, Hawaiʻi has remained in her heart. Now, instead of tromping through the rainforest, she roams the Rocky Mountains with her husband, two children, and rescue mutt, Peggy.
Growing up with ADHD meant school could be tough, but Hawaiian legends managed to captivate Malia’s imagination and stuck. Her ever-whirring brain is excited to spin new tales for the next generation, especially when she can weave in a whisper of island lore. -
Trang Thanh Tran
Trang Thanh Tran writes speculative stories with big emotions about food, belonging and the Vietnamese diaspora. They grew up in a big family in Philadelphia, then abandoned degrees in sociology and public health to tell stories in Georgia. When not writing, they can be found over-caffeinating on iced coffee and watching zombie movies. SHE IS A HAUNTING is their debut novel.
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Victoria Grace Elliott
I’m Victoria Grace Elliott, a queer comic artist living in Austin, Texas. I’ve written, drawn, and colored my middle grade nonfiction graphic novels, Yummy: A History of Desserts and Tasty: A History of Yummy Experiments (Random House Graphic) which feature my love of sharing history and interesting facts — as well as sweets! Please Be My Star is my romantic YA retelling of Phantom of the Opera (Scholastic Graphix/2024). I’m also the creator of the fantasy webcomic balderdash! or, a tale of two witches.
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Jacinda Ardern
The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern was elected the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand at the age of thirty-seven, becoming the country’s youngest Prime Minister in more than 150 years. Since leaving office, Ardern has established the Field Fellowship on empathetic leadership. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, continues to work on climate action, and is the Patron of the Christchurch Call to Action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. Ardern also works on a number of projects that support women and girls, but considers her greatest roles to be those she will hold for life, including that of mum and proud New Zealander.
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Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto is the Japanese and Kanaka Maoli author of the story collection Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare (Bloomsbury 2023), a USA Today national bestseller. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Granta, Joyland, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature and has received support from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Tin House Winter Workshop, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and is a Visiting Faculty in Fiction at Antioch University Los Angeles. A Fiction Editor for No Tokens journal, she lives in Honolulu.
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Kaylin Melia George
Kaylin Melia George grew up listening to her mother's bedtime stories about Moloka'i. The planting of these early seeds inspired Kaylin to dedicate her life to storytelling. Kaylin began her professional journey in filmmaking as an internationally award-winning director and screenwriter. Her work has been recognized by the Academy and includes documentaries for some of the most prominent nonprofits in the world. With Aloha Everything, Kaylin found a story close to her heart and celebrates her Native Hawaiian ancestry. This is the story she has always dreamed of telling.
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Trinity Nguyen
Trinity Nguyen is a Vietnamese American author and graduate of Franklin & Marshall College. She was born in Viet Nam and raised in Little Saigon, California, and learned English by reading too many young adult novels and never turning off closed captioning. Her debut novel, A BANH MI FOR TWO, is a national independent bookstore bestseller and a 2024 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee. Trinity currently lives in Los Angeles with her cats and the succulents from her mom’s garden.
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You can find Trinity on social media as @thetrinitytran on Instagram and Twitter, except for TikTok @eggtarts (because she refuses to retire the username), and otherwise trinity-nguyen.com. -
Emily Bowen Cohen
Emily Bowen Cohen lives in Los Angeles, CA. She won a WORD artist grant in 2016 to create the mini-comic, An American Indian Guide to the Day of Atonement. She was an Inquiry fellow at American Jewish University and also participated in the Reciprocity retreat through Asylum Arts. She graduated from Harvard University in 1997 with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies.
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Elise Bryant
Elise Bryant is the NAACP Image Award-nominated author of Happily Ever Afters, One True Loves, Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling, and the forthcoming It’s Elementary. For many years, Elise had the joy of working as a special education teacher, and now she spends her days reading, writing, and eating dessert. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Long Beach, California. You can visit her online at www.elisebryant.com.
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Karina Yan Glaser
Originally from California, Karina came to New York City for college and has stuck around for nearly twenty years. She has had a varied career teaching and implementing literacy programs in family homeless shelters and recruiting healthcare professionals to volunteer in under resourced areas around the world. Now as a mother, one of her proudest achievements is raising two kids who can’t go anywhere without a book. She lives in Harlem with her husband, two daughters, dog, cat, and house rabbit.
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Karina is a contributing editor at Book Riot where she writes about children's books and her life as a reader. -
Roshani Chokshi
Roshani Chokshi is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling series The Star-Touched Queen, The Gilded Wolves and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which Time Magazine named one of the Top 100 Fantasy Books of All Time. Her adult debut, The Last Tale of The Flower Bride, was a #1 Sunday Times bestseller. Her novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages and often draw upon world mythology and folklore. Chokshi is a member of the National Leadership Board for the Michael C. Carlos Museum and lives in Georgia with her husband and their cat whose diabolical plans must regularly be thwarted.
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Nic Stone
Nic Stone was born and raised in a suburb of Atlanta, GA, and the only thing she loves more than an adventure is a good story about one. After graduating from Spelman College, she worked extensively in teen mentoring and lived in Israel for a few years before returning to the US to write full-time. Growing up with a wide range of cultures, religions, and backgrounds, Stone strives to bring these diverse voices and stories to her work.
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Stone lives in Atlanta with her husband and two sons. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @getnicced or on her website nicstone.info. -
Freeman Ng
Freeman Ng is a former Google software engineer and the author of a novel of Joan of Arc, a personalizable picture book, and a daily haiku feed. He lives in Oakland, CA.
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John Lewis
John Robert Lewis was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987 and was the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation. He was a member of the Democratic Party and was one of the most liberal legislators.
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Barack Obama honoured Lewis with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and they marched hand in hand in Selma on the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday attack (March 7, 1965). -
Justina Ireland
Justina Ireland is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books including Dread Nation and its sequel Deathless Divide, the middle-grade novel Ophie's Ghosts, which won the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction, and a number of Star Wars books including Flight of the Falcon: Lando’s Luck, Spark of the Resistance, A Test of Courage, Out of the Shadows, and Mission to Disaster. She is a former editor in chief of FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, for which she won a World Fantasy Award. She holds a BA in History from Georgia Southern and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University.
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Charity Norman
Charity was born in Uganda, brought up in draughty vicarages in Yorkshire and Birmingham, met her future husband under a lorry in the Sahara. She worked as a barrister in York Chambers, until - realising that her three children had barely met her - she moved with her family to New Zealand and began to write.
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After the Fall/Second Chances was a Richard & Judy and World Book Night title, The New Woman/ The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone a BBC Radio 2 choice. See You in September (2017) was shortlisted in the Ngaio Marsh Awards. The Secrets of Strangers was a Radio 2 choice and shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh and Ned Kelly Awards. Her seventh, Remember Me, was published in March 2022. -
Francisco X. Stork
Francisco X. Stork was born in Mexico. He moved to El Paso Texas with his adoptive father and mother when he was nine. He attended Spring Hill College, Harvard University and Columbia Law School. He worked as an attorney for thirty-three years before retiring in 2015. He is married and has two grown children and four beautiful grandkids. He loves to discover new books and authors. His favorite books are those where the author's soul touches his. He does not read reviews to his books so you should feel free to write whatever you want. Also, he is genuinely interested in learning about books and life from his friends on this site. He would love it if you find his books worthy to be read, but that's not why he wants to be your friend.
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John Lewis
John Robert Lewis was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987 and was the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation. He was a member of the Democratic Party and was one of the most liberal legislators.
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Barack Obama honoured Lewis with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and they marched hand in hand in Selma on the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday attack (March 7, 1965). -
Christopher Lincoln
Christopher Lincoln is the author of the Billy Bones series. He graduated from the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University and spent nearly a decade working as an animator. He credits animation for teaching him how to write, because an animator must learn how to inhabit a character's body and move him in a world of his own.
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His work is influenced by creatives and authors such as Charles Dickens, J.M. Barrie, Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling and Tim Burton. -
Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang writes, and sometimes draws, comic books and graphic novels. As the Library of Congress’ fifth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, he advocates for the importance of reading, especially reading diversely. American Born Chinese, his first graphic novel from First Second Books, was a National Book Award finalist, as well as the winner of the Printz Award and an Eisner Award. His two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints won the L.A. Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award Finalist. His other works include Secret Coders (with Mike Holmes), The Shadow Hero (with Sonny Liew), Superman from DC Comics (with various artists), and the Avatar: The Last Airbender series from Dark Horse Comics (with Gurihiru). In 201
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Malia Maunakea
Malia Maunakea is a Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) writer who grew up in the rainforest of the Big Island before moving to a valley in Oʻahu in seventh grade to attend a school founded by a Hawaiian princess (Imua, Kamehameha!).
Buy books on Amazon
Though she relocated to Colorado for college, Hawaiʻi has remained in her heart. Now, instead of tromping through the rainforest, she roams the Rocky Mountains with her husband, two children, and rescue mutt, Peggy.
Growing up with ADHD meant school could be tough, but Hawaiian legends managed to captivate Malia’s imagination and stuck. Her ever-whirring brain is excited to spin new tales for the next generation, especially when she can weave in a whisper of island lore. -
Witi Ihimaera
Witi Ihimaera is a novelist and short story writer from New Zealand, perhaps the best-known Māori writer today. He is internationally famous for The Whale Rider.
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Ihimaera lives in New Zealand and is of Māori descent and Anglo-Saxon descent through his father, Tom. He attended Church College of New Zealand in Temple View, Hamilton, New Zealand. He was the first Māori writer to publish both a novel and a book of short stories. He began to work as a diplomat at the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973, and served at various diplomatic posts in Canberra, New York, and Washington, D.C. Ihimaera remained at the Ministry until 1989, although his time there was broken by several fellowships at the University of Otago in 1975 and Victoria -
Virginia Euwer Wolff
On August 25th, Virginia Euwer Wolff was born in Portland, Oregon. Her family lived on an apple and pear orchard near Mount Hood. Her father died when she was five years old and she admits her childhood was pretty messed up, but she held things together with her violin. She graduated from Smith College. She raised a son and daughter before going back to teaching high school English.
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She was almost fifty years old when she started writing children books. Virginia thought she might have one or two good books in her before the end but that was proven wrong. Today, she is no longer teaching, but writes full-time.
When Wolff was asked why she writes for kids and not grown-ups, She responded, "Because I don't think I have a handle on how to write -
David Hill
David Hill (born 1942) is a New Zealand author, especially well known for his young adult fiction. His young fiction books See Ya, Simon (1992) and Right Where It Hurts (2001) have been shortlisted for numerous awards. He is also a prolific journalist, writing many articles for The New Zealand Herald.
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He cites Maurice Gee as his favourite author, and Joy Cowley and Margaret Mahy as his favourite children's authors.
Hill attended Victoria University in Wellington, graduating MA Hons in 1964. Hill currently lives in New Plymouth.