Lenore Look is the author of Ruby Lu, Brave and True, an ALA Notable Book, as well as its sequels, Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything and Ruby Lu, Star of the Show. Her picture books include Love as Strong as Ginger, illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Stephen T. Johnson; Henry’s First-Moon Birthday; and Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding, both illustrated by Yumi Heo. She lives in Hong Kong.

Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of Cod, Salt, Paper, The Basque History of the World, 1968, The Big Oyster, International Night, The Eastern Stars, A Continent of Islands, and The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories.

He received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonviolence, Bon Appetit's Food Writer of the Year Award, the James Beard Award, and the Glenfiddich Award.

Salt was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. He spent ten years as Caribbean correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City.

David Lubar credits his passion for short stories to his limited attention span and bad typing skills, though he has been known to sit still and peck at the keyboard long enough to write a novel now and then, including Hidden Talents (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults) and My Rotten Life, which is currently under development for a cartoon series. He lives in Nazareth, PA. In his spare time, he takes naps on the couch

Paul Fleischman won a Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise and a Newbery Honor for Graven Images.

He is also the author of young adult novels including Whirligig and The Mind's Eye, and middle-grade novels including Bull Run and Seedfolks. He lives with his wife in northern California.

Loree Griffin Burns, Ph.D., did her doctoral at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Ms. Burns lives in Massachusetts with her husband and children. She is the author of Beetle Busters,Tracking Trash, and The Hive Detectives.

Kekla Magoon is the author of several books for young adults, including 37 Things I Love, the Coretta Scott King Honor/John Steptoe Award-winning The Rock and the River, and the Coretta Scott King Honor book How It Went Down. She has also contributed to the anthology Dear Heartbreak: YA Authors and Teens on the Dark Side of Love. She lives in Vermont. keklamagoon.com

Marc Aronson is the acclaimed author of Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert, which earned four starred reviews.

He is also the author of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Quest for El Dorado, winner of the ALA's first Robert L. Sibert Award for nonfiction and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award.

He has won the LMP award for editing and has a PhD in American history from NYU.

Marc lives in Maplewood, New Jersey, with his wife and son. 

Susan Campbell Bartoletti is the author of many nonfiction books for young people, including Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow, a Newbery Honor Book. She lives in Pennsylvania.

Marc Aronson is the author and editor of many titles for young people, including War Is: Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk about War, co-edited by Patty Campbell, and Master of Deceit: J. Edgar Hoover and America in the Age of Lies. Marc Aronson lives in New Jersey.