David Bowles is the award-winning Mexican American author of They Call Me Guero and other titles for young readers.

Because of his family's roots in Mexico, he's traveled all over that country studying creepy legends, exploring ancient ruins, and avoiding monsters (so far). He lives in Donna, TX., 

Melanie Crowder holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the author of the critically acclaimed Audacity and An Uninterrupted View of the Sky. She lives with her family on the Colorado Front Range.

Margarita Engle is the national Young People’s Poet Laureate, and the first Latino to receive that honor. She is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, including The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor winner, and The Lightning Dreamer, a PEN Literary Award for Young Adult Literature winner.

Her verse memoir, Enchanted Air, received the Pura Belpré Award, a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor, and was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, among others.

Her picture book Drum Dream Girl received the Charlotte Zolotow Award. Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives. She continues to visit Cuba as often as she can.

Laura Ruby is an author of books for adults, teens, and children, including the Printz award-winning Bone Gap, Edgar-nominated mystery Lily's Ghosts, the 2006 Book Sense Pick Good Girls, and the acclaimed novels Play Me and Bad Apple.

She is on the faculty of Hamline University's MFA in writing for children and young adults program and lives in the Chicago area.

Padma Venkatraman was born in Chennai, India, and became an American citizen after living in five countries and working as an oceanographer.

She is also the author of A Time to Dance (IBBY selection, ALA Notable, Notable Books for a Global Society, and New York Public Library Best Book), Island's End (ALA Best Book for Young Adults, CCBC Choice, and South Asia Book Award winner), and Climbing the Stairs (Bank Street Best Book, ALA/Amelia Bloomer List, YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, and Julia Ward Howe Award winner).

Jasmine Warga is also the author of the teen books, Here We Are Now, and My Heart and Other Black Holes, which has been translated into over twenty languages.

She lives and writes in Chicago, IL.

Charles Waters grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, and currently works as a poet and actor.

His poems for children have appeared in anthologies including One Minute Till Bedtime, and The National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry.

Charles conducts poetry performance workshops for elementary and middle school audiences across the nation, and he has performed in more than thirty states. He makes his home in New York City.

Kip Wilson is the Poetry Editor of the Young Adult Review Network and has a Ph.D. in German Literature. In 2017, she won the PEN/New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award, and her work has appeared in several children's literary magazines. She lives in Boston, MA.

Mariama J. Lockington is an adoptee, writer, and nonprofit educator. She has been telling stories and making her own books since the second grade, when she wore short-alls and flower leggings every day to school. Her work has appeared in a number of magazines and journals, including Buzzfeed News Reader, and she is the author of the poetry chapbook The Lucky Daughter. Mariama holds a master's in Education from Lesley University and master's in fine arts in poetry from San Francisco State University. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her partner and dapple haired dachshund, Henry.