About the Authors
Karissa Vacker is a multiple AudioFile Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator and actress. After graduating with a BFA in acting from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, she performed in regional theaters across the country before moving to Los Angeles. She has guest starred in network television shows and films and continues to work on screen and stage. Her audiobook credits include romance, young adult fiction, and mystery thrillers.
Jennifer L. Armentrout is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of young adult contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and thrillers as well as new adult and contemporary romance. The first book in her bestselling Lux series, Obsidian, has been optioned for film by Sierra Pictures. Television rights to her Covenant series have been optioned to Herrick Entertainment.
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.
Katie Cotugno went to Catholic school for thirteen years, which makes her, as an adult, both extremely superstitious and prone to crushes on boys wearing blazers. She is a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in the Mississippi Review, Iowa Review, and Argestes, among other literary magazines, as well as on Nerve.com.
Jocelyn Davies is the author of A Beautiful Dark and A Fractured Light. She edits young adult fiction at a publishing house in New York, a job that has allowed her to cultivate a keen interest in all things angsty, hilarious, and/or unrequited. She is a graduate of Bates College, and lives in an apartment overflowing with books.
Huntley Fitzpatrick always wanted to be writer ever since growing up in a small, coastal Connecticut town much like the Stony Bay of her novels, My Life Next Door and What I Thought Was True. After college she worked in many fields, including academic publishing and as an editor at Harlequin. Fitzpatrick is currently a full-time writer, wife, and mom to six children.
Nina LaCour is the Michael L. Printz award-winning and nationally bestselling author of Watch Over Me, We Are Okay, Hold Still, and Everything Leads to You. She hosts the podcast Keeping a Notebook and teaches for Hamline University’s MFA degree program in writing for children and young adults. She is a former indie bookseller and high school English teacher.
Emery Lord is the author of Open Road Summer, The Start of Me and You, and When We Collided. She lives with her husband in Ohio, where they are owned by two rescue dogs.
Katharine McGee is from Houston, Texas. She studied English and French literature at Princeton and has an MBA from Stanford. It was during her years living in a second-floor apartment in New York City that she kept daydreaming about skyscrapers … and then she started writing.
Kass Morgan
received a BA from Brown, where she studied history and literature, and a master’s
degree from Oxford, where she learned how to queue and walk on cobblestones in
high heels. She currently works as an editor and lives in
Brooklyn, where she continues to wear impractical shoes.
Julie Murphy
lives in North Texas with her husband who loves her, her dog who adores her,
and her cats who tolerate her. When she’s not writing or trying to catch stray
animals, Julie can be found in a library smelling old books and manning the
reference desk.
Meredith Russo started living as her true self in late 2013 and never looked back. If I Was Your Girl was partially inspired by her experiences as a trans woman. Like Amanda, Meredith is a gigantic nerd who spends a lot of her time obsessing over video games and Star Wars. She is the lucky parent of Vivian and Darwin, the two best children on the planet.
Sara Shepard is the author of more than forty novels for children, teens, and adults, including the #1 New York Times bestselling series Pretty Little Liars. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.
Nicola Yoon is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn and currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. She’s also a hopeless romantic who firmly believes that you can fall in love in an instant and that it can last forever.
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.
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.
About the Narrators
Kyla Garcia is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. Born and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey, she discovered acting at the age of eight when she played Lady Macbeth in a children’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. She made her off-Broadway debut at fifteen when she played Dorothy in Oz: A Twisted Musical. Eleven years after she discovered her passion for acting, she would go on to play Lady Macbeth once again in London at the Globe Theatre, where she studied Shakespeare during her third year at Mason Gross School of the Arts. She received her BFA in acting from Rutgers University.
Sullivan Jones is a voice talent and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator.
Dara Rosenberg is an accomplished voice-over artist who has been recognized nationally for her extensive work in audiobooks and commercials. She has a BFA in drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and studied at Interlochen Arts Academy, where she majored in drama and musical theater.
Caitlin Davies is a New York City–based actor and audiobook narrator who studied acting at the Eugene O’Neill National Institute, the British American Drama Academy, and the Barrow Group. She specializes in audiobooks for teens and young adults.
Dara Rosenberg is an accomplished voice-over artist who has been recognized nationally for her extensive work in audiobooks and commercials. She has a BFA in drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and studied at Interlochen Arts Academy, where she majored in drama and musical theater.
Bahni Turpin, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and several prestigious Audie Awards for her narrations, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. Publishers Weekly magazine named her Narrator of the Year for 2016. She is an ensemble member of the Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles. She has guest starred in many television series, including NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Six Feet Under, Cold Case, What about Brian, and The Comeback. Film credits include Brokedown Palace, Crossroads, and Daughters of the Dust. She is also a member of the recording cast of The Help, which won numerous awards.
Kiff VandenHeuvel, voice talent and audiobook narrator, is originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and is an alumni of the Second City comedy theater. He is an accomplished improviser and sketch comedy director, and he teaches voice-over, improv, and directing at Second City Hollywood. He has appeared in hundreds of television and radio commercials and is well known in the video game community as the voice of Zachary Hale Comstock in Bioshock: Infinite.