About the Authors
Brenda Watson, CNC, is the bestselling author of The Fiber35 Diet: Nature’s Weight Loss Secret and one of the foremost dietary authorities in America today. She has gained national recognition with her televised PBS special Brenda Watson’s H.O.P.E. Formula: The Ultimate Health Secret. She has two grown children and currently lives in Florida with her husband, Stan, and their dogs.
Tracey Baptiste was born in Trinidad, where she grew up on jumbie stories and fairy tales, and decided to be a writer at the wise old age of three. Her debut, a young-adult novel titled Angel’s Grace, was named one of the 100 best books for reading and sharing by New York City librarians. She is a former teacher, textbook editor, ballerina, and amateur librarian who once started up a library in her house. She writes and edits books for kids.
Varian Johnson is the author of several novels for children and young adults, including The Parker Inheritance, for which he won a Coretta Scott King Honor award; The Great Greene Heist, which was an ALA Notable Children’s Book, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2014, and a Texas Library Association Lone Star List selection; and To Catch a Cheat, a Kids’ Indie Next List pick. You can find him online at varianjohnson.com.
Rita Williams-Garcia is the author of the Newbery Honor–winning novel One Crazy Summer, which was also a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, a National Book Award finalist, and winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. She is also the author of several other novels for young adults, including Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; Every Time a Rainbow Dies, a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book; Fast Talk on a Slow Track, an ALA Best Books for Young Adults; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the program for writing for children and young adults.
Kekla Magoon is the Margaret A. Edwards Award-winning author of more than a dozen books for young readers. Revolution in Our Time was shortlisted for the National Book Award and The Rock and the River won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award. She is also the coauthor, with Ilyasah Shabazz, of X: A Novel, which was long-listed for the National Book Award and received an NAACP Image Award and a Coretta Scott King Honor. She serves on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Lamar Giles is the Edgar Award–nominated author of young-adult fiction, including the Legendary Alston Boys series, the Epic Ellisons series, and several stand-alone novels. He is the cofounder of We Need Diverse Books and the editor of the WNDB anthology, Fresh Ink.
Dhonielle Clayton writes fiction for middle grade, young adult, and women and was named a Best Author of YA Fiction by BookRiot in 2019. She earned an MA degree in children’s literature from Hollins University and an MFA in writing for children at the New School. She taught secondary school for several years and is a former librarian and cofounder of Cake Literary, a creative kitchen whipping up decadent and diverse literary confections for readers.
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors. He is also the 2020–2021 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.
Ibi Zoboi is an author whose novel American Street was a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of Pride and My Life As an Ice Cream Sandwich, a New York Times bestseller. She is the editor of the anthology Black Enough. She holds an MFA degree from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, she now lives in New Jersey. You can find her online at www.ibizoboi.net.
Brandy Colbert is the critically acclaimed author of the novels Pointe, The Voting Booth, Finding Yvonne, The Revolution of Birdie Randolph, The Only Black Girls in Town, and the Stonewall Award winner Little & Lion. A trained journalist, she also worked with boundary-breaking ballet dancer Misty Copeland to adapt her memoir into the bestselling book Life in Motion: Young Readers Edition. She is on the faculty at Hamline University’s MFA degree program for writing for children and young adults. find her online at www.brandycolbert.com.
Liara Tamani lives in Houston, Texas. She recieved an MFA in writing from Vermont College. Her fiction has appeared in Apalachee Review, Blackbird, Ducts, Fourteen Hills, The Griffin, and Storyscape Journal, among others. In addition to writing, she teaches the healing movement forms of Nia and yoga.
Justina Ireland is the author of Dread Nation, Deathless Divide, Vengeance Bound, Promise of Shadows, and the Star Wars novel Lando’s Luck. You can visit her online at www.justinaireland.com.
Nic Stone is an Atlanta native and a Spelman College graduate. After working extensively in teen mentoring and living in Israel for several years, she returned to the United States to write full-time. Her debut novel for young adults, Dear Martin, was a New York Times bestseller and a William C. Morris Award finalist. Odd One Out was an NPR Best Book of the Year and a Rainbow Book List Top Ten selection.
Renée Watson is the author of This Side of Home, which was nominated for the Best Fiction for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Her picture book Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills received several honors including an NAACP Image Award nomination in children’s literature. She is also the founder of the I, Too Arts Collective and currently teaches courses on writing for children at University of New Haven and Pine Manor College.
Tochi Onyebuchi is a writer based in Connecticut. He holds a MFA in Screenwriting from Tisch and a JD from Columbia Law School. His writing has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and Ideomancer, among other places.
Jay Coles is a graduate of Vincennes University and Ball State University. When he’s not writing diverse books, he’s advocating for them, teaching middle school students, and composing for various music publishers.
Coe Booth is the author of Tyrell, Kendra, Bronxwood, and Kinda like Brothers, among other books. She is a graduate of The New School’s Writing for Children MFA program and a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction.
Jason Reynolds, the author of numerous books for children and young adults, is a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, National Book Award Honoree, a Kirkus Award winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors. He is the American Booksellers Association’s 2017 and 2018 spokesperson for Indies First.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.