Susan Kuklin is the award-winning author and photographer of more than thirty books for children and young adults that address social issues and culture, including No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row; Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, a Stonewall Honor Book; and We Are Here to Stay: Voices of Undocumented Young Adults. Her photographs have appeared in documentary films and in Time magazine, Newsweek, and the New York Times. Susan Kuklin lives in New York City.

Meg Medina is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Merci Suárez Changes Gears, which was a 2018 Kirkus Prize finalist.

She is also the author of award-winning YA novels and the picture books Mango, Abuela, and Me, illustrated by Angela Dominguez, which was a Pura Belpré Author and Illustrator Award Honor Book, and Tía Isa Wants a Car, illustrated by Claudio Muñoz, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award.

The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Richmond, Virginia.

David Levithan is fearless in his writing and absolutely assumes that the teenagers he writes for can comprehend, enjoy and relate to complicated, full and enveloping emotions, and this unflinching faith in his readership has once again led him to write another contemporary classic. 

Readings on Another Day  'David Levithan's latest release is timely and important but, most of all, it is astonishingly sophisticated.. Levithan has outdone himself.' Courier Mail on Two Boys Kissing 'Levithan's self-conscious, analytical style marries perfectly with the plot. His musings on love, longing and human nature knit seamlessly with A's journey.

Readers will devour his trademark poetic wordplay and cadences that feel as fresh as they were when he wrote Boy Meets Boy (2003). An awe-inspiring, thought-provoking reminder that love reaches beyond physical appearances or gender.

Peter Parnell is the coauthor, with Justin Richardson, of And Tango Makes Three. He is a playwright whose plays have been produced at the Public Theater and Playwrights Horizons in New York City, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and the Seattle Repertory Company, among others. His play QED was produced on Broadway. He has written extensively for television as a producer for both The West Wing and The Guardian; he has also written episodes of Maurice Sendak's series Little Bear. He lives in New York City.

Katherine Paterson is one of the world’s most celebrated and beloved authors. Among her many awards are two Newberys and two National Book Awards, and she was recently named a "Living Legend” by the Library of Congress. She has been published in more than 22 languages in a variety of formats, from picture books to historical novels.

Dav Pilkey was born on March 4th, 1966 in Cleveland, OH. His father (David, Sr.) was a steel salesman, and his mother (Barbara) was the organist at a local church. Dav's older sister (Cindy) was a highly-skilled professional tattletale.

After setting the school's all-time record for the amount of time spent in the principal's office, Dav was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and severe hyperactivity. By the start of first grade, Dav had successfully moved into the role of class clown. He was the undisputed king of funny noises, and held the classroom record for the number of crayons he could stick up his nose at one time (a record he still holds to this day).

Everybody in Dav's class thought he was pretty funny, except for one person - his teacher!

Dav's teacher didn't care for his particular brand of humor, so she began sending him out into the hallway. Before long, Dav was spending so much time in the hall that his teacher moved a little desk out there for him.

In the hallway, Dav would sit down at his desk, take out his art supplies, and start drawing. At first, he drew only pictures, but as time went on Dav began making up stories, too.

Dav attended a very strict high school, and things just got worse. Dav’s teachers hated his sense of humor, and often discouraged his artistic talents.

In 1984, Dav Pilkey attended Kent State University as an art major. While attending a freshman English class, one of Dav's professors complimented him on his creative writing skills, and encouraged him to write books. Dav thought this was a novel idea, and began working on his first children's book.

Dav learned about a contest for students who write and illustrate their own books. The winners got their books published! So Dav began creating his first book, World War Won, and entered it in The National Written and Illustrated By...Awards Contest for Students. Within a year, Dav had won the contest and was flying to Kansas City, Missouri to meet the editors and publishers at Landmark Editions, Inc.

Shortly after the publication of World War Won, Dav moved back to Kent, Ohio where he wrote and illustrated many more books. During this time, Dav found a cute stray puppy and named her 'Little Dog'. She soon became his best friend.

In 1990, Dav dreamed one night that he was supposed to move to Oregon, so a couple of years later, he and Little Dog headed out West.

In 1999, Dav and Little Dog moved to a small island in Washington. Dav and Little Dog enjoyed taking long walks on the beach, and sometimes they even went kayaking together. But their favorite thing of all was to walk down the street to the island’s local sushi restaurant. Dav was the only customer in the restaurant who had special permission to bring his dog in with him. As Dav would eat yummy vegetarian sushi rolls, Little Dog would sit under his table and eat her own meal (a chicken dinner that the restaurant’s owner, Sayuri, prepared especially for her).

After a few years, Dav and Sayuri (pronounced Sy-you-dee) fell deeply in love and were married on the beach under a full moon in 2005.

Currently, Dav is working hard on a set of epic novels based on the Captain Underpants comic books he wrote in elementary school while sitting out in the hallway.

Justin Richardson, MD, is the coauthor, with Peter Parnell, of the award-winning picture book And Tango Makes Three. Dr. Richardson is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia and Cornell and the coauthor of Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They'd Ask).

Dr. Richardson and his advice have been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post, on the Today show and NPR's Morning Edition, and in numerous magazines. Dr. Richardson lectures to parents and teachers on parenting and the sexual development of children.

Leonard S. Marcus is one of the world’s leading writers about children’s books and the people who create them. He is the award-winning author of more than twenty-five books, including Show Me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter; Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom; The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy; Funny Business: Conversations with Writers of Comedy; and Comics Confidential: Thirteen Graphic Novelists Talk Story, Craft, and Life Outside the Box.

His essays, interviews, and reviews appear in the New York Times Book Review and Horn Book magazine. A founding trustee of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, he teaches at New York University and the School of Visual Arts and lectures about his work across the world. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.