Anne Ursu is an American novelist and children's writer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
She attended Brown University.
Ursu's first novel, Spilling Clarence, is about a drug that wafts through the air of a small Minnesota town. The drug had a strong effect on the town's residents, who then suffered from visceral memories and stupor. Her second novel, The Disapparation of James, is about a boy disappearing during a stage magic trick.
Breadcrumbs, a middle-grade novel published by Walden Pond Press, was released September 27, 2011. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," Breadcrumbs is a story of the struggle to hold on, and of the things we leave behind.
Ursu has also written a trilogy for middle-grade readers, the Cronus Chronicles, (published by Atheneum), involving two cousins' adventures in the realms of Greek mythology. The individual titles are The Shadow Thieves,The Siren Song, and The Immortal Fire.
She published another middle-grade fantasy in 2013, The Real Boy, which was longlisted for the National Book Award.
She teaches at Hamline University's low residency MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. [1]
Ursu is also the former author of a popular sports blog about the Minnesota Twins called bat-girl.com. In 2007, she posted on the site that she no longer had time to maintain it, saying: "The time has come to end this wonderful adventure. I had hoped to be able to keep it up with Dash, but I simply do not have time to do this blog well, and there is no point in doing it any other way." [2]
Tamora Pierce is an American writer of fantasy fiction for teenagers, known best for stories featuring young heroines. She made a name for herself with her first book series, The Song of the Lioness (1983–1988), which followed the main character Alanna through the trials and triumphs of training as a knight.
Andrew Elborn Clements was an American author of children's literature. His debut novel Frindle won an award determined by the vote of U.S. schoolchildren in about 20 different U.S. states. In June 2015, Frindle was named the Phoenix Award winner for 2016, as it was the best book that did not win a major award when it was published.
Jon Scieszka is an American children's writer, best known for his picture books created with the illustrator Lane Smith. He is also a nationally recognized reading advocate, and the founder of Guys Read – a web-based literacy program for boys whose mission is "to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers."
Ally Carter is the pen name of Sarah Leigh Fogleman, an American author of young adult fiction and adult-fiction novels.
The Harper Hall trilogy is a series of three science fiction novels by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. They are part of the Dragonriders of Pern series as it is known today, 26 books by Anne or her son Todd McCaffrey or daughter Gigi McCaffrey as of 2018. They were published by Atheneum Books in 1976, 1977, and 1979, alongside the Dragonriders of Pern series. Omnibus editions of the two trilogies were published by the Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club in 1978 and 1984, titled The Dragonriders of Pern and The Harper Hall of Pern respectively.
Marilyn Singer is an author of children's books in a wide variety of genres, including fiction and non-fiction picture books, juvenile novels and mysteries, young adult fantasies, and poetry. Some of her poems are written as reverso poems.
Guys Read is a web-based literacy program for boys founded by author Jon Scieszka in 2001. Its mission is "to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers" by bringing attention to the issue, promoting the expansion of what is called "reading" to include materials like comic books, and encouraging grown men to be literacy role models.
Mona Susan Power is an American author from Chicago, Illinois. Her debut novel, The Grass Dancer (1994), received the 1995 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for Best First Fiction.
Elise Primavera is an American author and illustrator of children's novels. She arrived on the literary scene in 1981 as an illustrator for Atheneum, Putnam, and other publishing houses. Over the course of the last three decades, she has been a prolific illustrator and has written and illustrated several well-received books of her own.
Janet Taylor Lisle was an American author of children's books and young adult novels that range between fantasy and reality.
Emily Jenkins, who sometimes uses the pen name E. Lockhart, is an American writer of children's picture books, young-adult novels, and adult fiction. She is known best for the Ruby Oliver quartet, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and We Were Liars.
Patti Kim is a Korean American writer and a Diane Cleaver fellow. Kim is the author of the award-winning novel A Cab Called Reliable, children's picture book Here I Am, middle grade novel, I'm Ok, and middle grade novel, It's Girls Like You, Mickey.
Walden Pond Press, established in 2008, is the co-publishing venture of film production company Walden Media and book publisher HarperCollins. The venture operates as an imprint of HarperCollins Children's Books, and its logo, a skipping stone on Walden Pond, is derivative of the Walden Media logo.
Geoff Herbach is an American novelist. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, on October 30, 1969, Herbach grew up in Platteville, Wisconsin. He is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. He is the author of one picture book and nine novels, including The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg, The Stupid Fast Trilogy, Fat Boy Vs. The Cheerleaders, and Hooper.Stupid Fast won the 2011 Cybils Award in the Young Adult Fiction category. Nothing Special won the 2013 Minnesota Book Award for Young People's literature. Cracking the Bell won the 2020 Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement by a Wisconsin author.
Claire Legrand is an American writer of children's and young adult literature, including novels and short stories. She is best known for her New York Times bestsellingEmpirium trilogy, published by Sourcebooks Fire.
Kelly Barnhill is an American author of children's literature, fantasy, and science fiction. Her novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon was awarded the 2017 Newbery Medal. Kirkus Reviews named When Women Were Dragons one of the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2022.
Erin Entrada Kelly is an American writer of children's literature. She was awarded the 2018 John Newbery Medal by the Association for Library Service to Children for her third novel, Hello, Universe.
Lost Children Archive is a 2019 novel by writer Valeria Luiselli. Luiselli was in part inspired by the ongoing American policy of separating children from their parents at the Mexico–United States border. The novel is the first book Luiselli wrote in English.
Split Tooth is a 2018 novel by Canadian musician Tanya Tagaq. Based in part on her own personal journals, the book tells the story of a young Inuk woman growing up in the Canadian Arctic in the 1970s.
Alicia Diane Williams is an American author and teacher. Her debut novel, Genesis Begins Again, published in 2019, received wide praise and won a Newbery Honor, the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award for New Talent, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and Kirkus Prize for Young Readers Literature.