Cynthia Kadohata is a Japanese American children's writer best known for her young adult novel Kira-Kira which won the Newbery Medal in 2005. She won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2013 for The Thing About Luck.
Sujata Massey is an American mystery author and historical fiction novelist. Her books are published in English in the US and Canada, the United Kingdom and India, and Australia/New Zealand. Massey’s novels are also available in different languages and formats in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain and Thailand.
Ilyasah Shabazz is an American author, community organizer, social activist, and motivational speaker. She is the third daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, and wrote a memoir titled Growing Up X.
The Luxe is a 2007 young adult novel by author Anna Godbersen. It follows the lives of two upper class sisters in Manhattan during 1899. There are four books in the Luxe series including Luxe, Rumors, Envy, and Splendor.
Sam Stone is the horror and fantasy pen name for British multi-award winning Thriller novellist and screenwriter Samantha Lee Howe. She is best known for her USA Today! best selling novel The Stranger In Our Bed published by HarperCollins imprint One More Chapter. This novel has recently been made into a film by production company Buffalo Dragon, The film, directed by Giles Alderson and starring Samantha Bond, Emily Berrington, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Joseph Marcell, Nina Wadia, Bart Edwards and Terri Dwyer, was released on 1 July 2022 on Showtime Networks. Samantha has since sold three more books to HarperCollins One More Chapter and all three were published in 2021 as The House of Killers Trilogy which consists of The House of Killers Book 1, Kill or Die Book 2, and Kill A Spy Book 3.
Lisa McMann is an American author and the creator of The Unwanteds and The Unwanteds Quests series for young readers and the WAKE trilogy for young adults.
Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet and author of many award-winning books for children, young adults and adults. Most of Engle's stories are written in verse and are a reflection of her Cuban heritage and her deep appreciation and knowledge of nature. She became the first Latino awarded a Newbery Honor in 2009 for The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom. She was selected by the Poetry Foundation to serve from 2017 to 2019 as the sixth Young People's Poet Laureate. On October 9, 2018, Margarita Engle was announced the winner of the 2019 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature. She was nominated by 2019 NSK Prize jury member Lilliam Rivera.
Jandy Nelson is an American author. Prior to her career as an author, Nelson worked for 13 years as a literary agent at Manus & Associates Literary Agency. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University as well as several Master of Fine Arts degrees. She later attended Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Soulless is a steampunk paranormal romance novel by Gail Carriger. First published in the United States on October 1, 2009 by Orbit Books, Soulless is the first book in the five-novel "The Parasol Protectorate" series, each featuring Alexia Tarabotti, a woman without a soul, as its lead character. A finalist for several literary awards and a recipient of the 2010 Alex Award, Soulless was declared by Publishers Weekly to be one of the "Best Books of 2009". A manga adaptation of the first 3 volumes of the novel was published by Yen Press in July 2011.
Ruta Sepetys is a Lithuanian-American writer of historical fiction. As an author, she is a New York Times and international bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal and The Josette Frank Award for Fiction.
Gavin Mikhail is an American composer, pianist and singer-songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee.
Kirstin Cronn-Mills is an American author of children's books including the Minnesota Book Award finalist The Sky Always Hears Me And the Hills Don't Mind (2009) and Beautiful Music for Ugly Children (2012) which was a Stonewall Book Award winner and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her third novel, Original Fake (2016), was a Minnesota Book Award finalist in 2017, along with her third nonfiction volume for high school libraries, LGBTQ+ Athletes Claim the Field. Her fourth novel, Wreck, will be published in 2019.
Alaya Dawn Johnson is an American writer of speculative fiction.
Aistė Diržiūtė is a Lithuanian actress best known for her role as Austė in The Summer of Sangaile.
Out of the Easy is a 2013 novel by Ruta Sepetys. It is her second published novel and was listed as a 2014 Best Children's Book of the Year from the Children's Book Committee of Bank Street College of Education.
Ashes in the Snow is a World War II drama film based on The New York Times best selling novel Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. The film is a coming-of-age tale of a young teenager named Lina who, with her mother and younger brother, was deported from her native Lithuania to a Soviet gulag amid Stalin's occupation of the Baltic region during World War II. An aspiring artist, she secretly documents her harrowing journey with her drawings.
Salt to the Sea is a 2016 historical fiction young adult novel by Ruta Sepetys. It tells the story of four individuals in World War II who make their way to the ill-fated MV Wilhelm Gustloff. The story also touches on the disappearance of the Amber Room, a world-famous, ornately decorated chamber stolen by the Nazis that has never been recovered.
Charlie Nicholes Holmberg is an American fantasy writer best known for The Paper Magician series. She is from Salt Lake City, Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in English in 2010. Her first novel, The Paper Magician, was released in 2014. Holmberg expanded the book into a series, the film rights for which were purchased by Disney in 2016. In addition to her other book series, Holmberg has published six standalone novels with her seventh to be released July 1, 2024. She is a multi-Whitney Award recipient for The Fifth Doll (2017), The Will and the Wilds (2020) and Star Mother (2021). The Hanging City was a 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist. Many of her other works have been nominated for literary awards as well. In addition to writing, Holmberg cohosts the podcast Your Mom Writes Books.
Jessica James is an American author of suspense, historical fiction, and military fiction ranging from the Revolutionary War to modern day.
Emily X.R. Pan is a New York Times Bestselling American author of young adult fiction, best known for her debut novel The Astonishing Color of After.
