Paul Tobin is the Eisner-award winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Bandette, Colder, and many other comic books and graphic series. Bandette, drawn by Colleen Coover, was awarded the Eisner Award for Best Digital Series in 2013, 2016, and 2017; and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award for Graphic Literature in 2016. His original graphic novel I Was the Cat was nominated for an Eisner in 2015. The Genius Factor: How to Capture an Invisible Cat , first in his five-book series of middle-grade books, came out in 2016 from Bloomsbury Kids. It was followed in 2017 by How To Outsmart A billion Robot Bees , and How To Tame A Human Tornado in March 2018.

Joshua Pruett is a Primetime Emmy Nominated writer and human-author-person who splits his time unevenly between Gallifrey and Los Angeles with his incredible Wife/High School Sweetheart/Knitter/Singer Amanda and their boy and girl-shaped children. He is currently living out a dream come true, writing dialogue for Weird Al Yankovic's mouth on Disney XD's MILO MURPHY'S LAW (2016). As a Writer/Artist, Joshua has over a decade of experience inflicting laughter on others, with credits on the history making Kickstarter relaunch of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 (coming to Netflix in early 2017), PHINEAS AND FERB, and the HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON franchise. He has worked as a storyboard artist, writer and creative consultant for Disney TV, DreamWorks Feature Animation, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks TV, Awesomeness TV, Sprout/NBC Universal, Disney China/Beijing, Zombie Bake Shop, Netflix and Paramount Feature Animation. Most recently, he developed THE HAUNTED MANSION for Disney TV with his friend and writing partner, Scott Peterson. His first novel, THE JUNGLE BOOK: THE STRENGTH OF THE WOLF IS THE PACK, with Scott Peterson, adapts the 2016 live action feature film into a fun for all ages novel for young readers. Joshua is also internet famous for getting a WIN on failblog (just type "EPIC WIN DAD" into Google Image search—he and his daughter's award-winning Halloween costume is the first photo to come up). https://www.facebook.com/GoPruett/ http://www.amazon.com/Joshua-Pruett/e... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2956436/?r...

Ask Ron Koertge what he brings to the realm of young adult fiction, and the seasoned author responds matter-of-factly. "I write dialogue well, and I'm funny," he says—an assessment few would argue with. "I like iconoclasm and practice it in my fiction. I don't like pretense or hypocrisy. I'm almost always irreverent." A faculty member for more than 35 years at Pasadena City College, where he has taught everything from Shakespeare to remedial writing, Ron Koertge is the author of several acclaimed novels, most of them for young adults. That Ron Koertge is a master at capturing teenagers' voices—often in witty repartee—is fully evident in MARGAUX WITH AN X, the story of a sharp-tongued beauty and a quirky, quick-witted loner. "MARGAUX WITH AN X started as a short story, but the heroine wouldn't let me alone," the author says. "She had a story to tell, and she wanted a whole novel to tell it in." Another unlikely pairing is found in STONER & SPAZ, Ron Koertge's funny, in-your-face tale of a young cinephile with cerebral palsy and the stoner who steals his heart. "My wife works with the disabled," the writer says of his inspiration for the novel, which quickly garnered critical acclaim. "One night she came home and told me about a young man she'd been working with. He had C.P. and a terrific sense of humor. Coincidentally, that day I had talked to a former student of mine who'd recently been in rehab for substance abuse. What would happen, I wondered, if those two knew each other?" In addition to his young adult novels, Ron Koertge writes poetry, and has been dubbed "the wisest, most entertaining wiseguy in American poetry" by poet-laureate Billy Collins. SHAKESPEARE BATS CLEANUP is narrated by a straight-talking, fourteen-year-old first baseman who has been benched by mono and decides to take a swing at writing poetry. Written entirely in free verse, with examples of several poetic forms slipped into the mix—including a sonnet, haiku, pastoral, and even a pantoum—SHAKESPEARE BATS CLEANUP is a veritable English teacher's dream. "The interest in SHAKESPEARE BATS CLEANUP is less with the arc of the plot than with the individual poems, some of which demonstrate poetic form, some of which tell the story," the author says. "One of my biggest challenges was to write like a fourteen-year-old who has a knack for writing poetry, and not just sound like a sixty-one-year-old pretending to be one!" The author's first book with Candlewick, THE BRIMSTONE JOURNALS, is also a novel written in free verse, with 15 different teenage characters narrating four or five poems each. "The book started to nag me a few months before the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, and I started to make notes in the form of poems," he says of the hauntingly prescient work. "BRIMSTONE needed to move at high velocity, and this form is perfect for that: no tail fins, no leather seats, no moon roof. Just get in and go." Ron Koertge grew up in an agricultural area in an old mining town in Illinois, just across the Mississippi from St. Louis, Missouri. There he learned to "drive a tractor and buck hay bales, which are clearly useful skills in Los Angeles," he quips. He and his wife live in South Pasadena, California.

Jenny is a professional chef, author, and speaker working at the intersection of food, identity, and social justice. She leads a nonprofit research organization named Studio ATAO, and runs her own culinary consulting business. Jenny writes a newsletter titled Way Too Complicated, and has bylines in outlets such as The Washington Post, Eater, The Counter, and Food & Wine. In pre-pandemic 2020, Jenny gave her first TEDx Talk titled How Food Can Be A Source of Identity, Intimacy, and Vulnerability. In 2022, she was named to Food & Wine's industry Changemakers list, as well as the World's 50 "50 Next" list. Her full biography, food portfolio, awards, and bylines can be found at www.jennydorsey.co.

Dave Roman is the author of several graphic novels including Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, Teen Boat!, Jax Epoch, and Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery. He has contributed stories to Explorer: The Mystery Boxes, Nursery Rhyme Comics, and is the co-author of two New York Times bestselling graphic novels, X-Men: Misfits and The Last Airbender: Zuko’s Story. Roman is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts and worked as a comics editor for the groundbreaking Nickelodeon Magazine from 1998 to 2009. He lives in Astoria, NY with his wife, and fellow comic artist, Raina Telgemeier. Dave has had stories in Flight volumes 3, 4, 5, & 7 (Villard) and Bizarro World (DC Comics). His website is Yaytime.com