Authors & Illustrators

Below are the 2023 participants. 2024 authors and illustrators will be announced sometime this winter

Sarah Albee

Author

Sarah Albee is the New York Times bestselling author of science and history books for kids. Her latest book is called Troublemakers in Trousers: Women and What They Wore to Get Things Done, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Other popular titles include Fairy Tale Science (winner of the Connecticut Book Award for NF); Accidental Archaeologists; North America: A Foldout Graphic History; Dog Days of History; POISON; and Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up. She lives in Connecticut with her family. Visit her at www.sarahalbeebooks.com

José Barreiro

Author

José Barreiro (born in Cuba in 1948), is an American novelist, author of the signal novel, Taino. Barreiro is recognized as an advocate of Native community self-determination and autochthonous development (indigeneity). A pioneering figure in Native American journalism and publishing, he is an elder of the Nación Taina/Taino Nation, he serves as advisor in campaigns of support for Native rights.

Barreiro served as assistant director for history and culture research and directed the Office for Latin America, at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian from 2006 to 2017. Retired from institutional work, he continues to write his stories and to guide various community projects and publications. He holds the life title of Smithsonian Scholar Emeritus.

Kalynn Bayron

Author

Kalynn Bayron is the bestselling author of young adult novels Cinderella Is Dead, This Poison Heart, and This Wicked Fate and the middle grade novel The Vanquishers, and is a classically trained vocalist. She grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. When she’s not writing you can find her listening to Ella Fitzgerald on loop, attending the theater, watching scary movies, and spending time with her kids. She currently lives in Ithaca, New York with her family. Visit her at www.kalynnbayron.com

Loree Griffin Burns

Author

Loree writes books that celebrate our natural world and the people who study it. While researching her award-winning science books for children, she has beachcombed on both coasts, cruised the Pacific in search of plastic, surveyed birds in Central Park, stung herself with a honeybee, visited the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly (on horseback!) and lived for a week on an uninhabited volcanic island in Iceland. Recently she’s been studying the insects that live in her neighborhood, work which inspired the picture books You’re Invited to a Moth Ball and Honeybee Rescue. Learn more at www.loreeburns.com.

Lesa Cline-Ransome

Author

Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of numerous non-fiction and historical fiction titles for picture book, chapter book, middle grade and young adult readers and her work has been named to ALA Notable Books and Bank Street Best Children’s Book lists. Her verse biography of Harriet Tubman, Before She Was Harriet was nominated for an NAACP image award and received a Jane Addams Honor, Christopher Award and Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration. Her debut middle grade novel, Finding Langston, won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and received the Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. The companion novels Leaving Lymon and Being Clem complete the Finding Langston trilogy. For Lamb is her debut YA historical fiction novel set in Jim Crow Mississippi. Read more. Visiter her at www.lesaclineransome.com

Maxwell Eaton III

Author & Illustrator

Maxwell Eaton III is the author and illustrator of dozens of graphic novels and picture books for young readers including the Survival Scout series, The Flying Beaver Brothers series, The Truth About Your Favorite Animals series, Okay Andy, Bear Goes Sugaring and more. All of Maxwell’s books are informed by a life led outdoors in the mountains and on the water. He is passionate about sharing his love for the natural world and empowering readers to make and do with their own hands; to think and act with calm and collected minds; and to maintain perspective and humor. He lives with his partner and two children in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. Visit him at maxwelleaton.com

Debbi Michiko Florence

Author

A third-generation Japanese American, Debbi Michiko Florence is the acclaimed author of more than 20 books for children and tweens. Her books have received starred reviews, JLG Selections, and inclusion on lists such as Amazon Best Books and the Chicago Public Library Best of the Best. She loves to write stories about friendship and family. Her middle grade novels include Sweet and Sour and Just Be Cool, Jenna Sakai. She is also the author of the award-winning Jasmine Toguchi chapter book series. A native Californian, Debbi now lives in Connecticut. Visit her online at debbimichikoflorence.com.

Amy Guglielmo

Author & Illustrator

Amy Guglielmo (she/her) is an award-winning author, educator, artist, and community arts and STEAM advocate. Her eighteen children’s book titles include the Christopher award-winning Pocket Full of Colors: The Magical World of Mary Blair, Disney Artist Extraordinaire (Atheneum 2017) and the new What the Artist Saw series with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is also the Creative Director of Reading Rainbow Live and the co-founder of Outside Art: Plattsburgh Public Art Project. Visit her at www.amyguglielmo.com

Angela Kunkel

Author

Angela Burke Kunkel is the author of Digging for Words: José Alberto Gutiérrez and the Library He Built (Random House/Schwartz & Wade, 2020), an ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book and winner of both the Américas Award and International Latino Book Award. She is also the author of Penguin Journey (Abrams Appleseed, 2021) and Make Way: The Story Robert McCloskey, Nancy Schön, and Some Very Famous Ducklings (Random House Studio, 2023). Look for her next book, World More Beautiful: The Life and Art of Barbara Cooney, in 2024.

Angela lives with her family in Vermont, where she works as a school librarian. Visit her at www.angelakunkel.com

Grace Lin

Author & Illustrator

Before Grace Lin was an award-winning and NY Times bestselling author/illustrator of picture books, early readers and middle grade novels, she was the only Asian girl (except for her sisters) going to her elementary school in Upstate NY. That experience, good and bad, has influenced her books—including her Newbery Honor Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, her Geisel Honor Ling & Ting her National Book Finalist When the Sea Turned to Silver and her Caldecott Honor A Big Moon Cake For Little Star. Read more Visit her at gracelin.com

Kate Messner

Author

New York Times bestselling author Kate Messner is passionately curious and has written more than fifty books for kids who wonder, too. Her award-winning titles include picture books like Over and Under the Snow, Over and Under the Waves, and The Scariest Kitten in the World; novels like Breakout and Chirp; engaging nonfiction like The Next President and the History Smashers series; the Ranger in Time historical adventures; and the Fergus and Zeke easy readers. Kate splits her time between Lake Champlain and Florida’s Gulf Coast. You can check in with her on Twitter @katemessner and at her website, katemessner.com.

Emma Otheguy

Author

Emma Otheguy is the author of several books for young readers, including the picture books A Sled for Gabo and Martina Has Too Many Tías, the bilingual picture book Martí’s Song for Freedom, and the middle grade novels Sofía Acosta Makes a Scene, Silver Meadows Summer, and, with Adam Gidwitz, The Madre de Aguas of Cuba, part of the Unicorn Rescue Society series. Visit her at EmmaOtheguy.com.

Francesca Padilla

Author

Francesca Padilla is a queer Dominican-American fiction writer born and raised in New York City and living in Rochester, NY. Her debut novel What’s Coming to Me (Soho Teen, 2022) has been recognized as a Junior Library Guild selection and a Best Teen/YA Book of 2022 by Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal. She leads writing camps for kids at Writers & Books in Rochester. For more information, visit www.frannypadilla.com.

James Ransome

Illustrator

James E. Ransome has been honored with the 2023 Children’s Literature Legacy Award by the American Library Association in recognition of his exceptional contributions to Children’s Literature. With a career spanning over 33 years, James has illustrated more than 70 books. His passion for drawing was kindled in Rich Square, NC, and as a teenager, he moved to Bergenfield, NJ, before pursuing a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Ransome’s remarkable talent has garnered him numerous accolades, including the prestigious Coretta Scott King Awards, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, ALA Notables, a Jane Addams Award, and NAACP Image awards.

He resides in New York. Visit him at jamesransome.com

Phil Stamper

Author

Phil Stamper is the bestselling author of The Gravity of Us, Small Town Pride, the Golden Boys series, and other queer books for kids and teens. He currently works in author development for a major book publisher near New York City, where he lives with his husband and daughter. Visit him at www.philstamper.com.