Katherine Applegate is the author of The One and Only Ivan, winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal. Her novel Crenshaw spent over twenty weeks on the New York Times children's bestseller list, and her first middle-grade stand-alone novel, the award-winning Home of the Brave, continues to be included on state reading lists, summer reading lists, and class reading lists. Katherine has written three picture books: The Buffalo Storm; The Remarkable True Story of Ivan, the Shopping Mall Gorilla (often used as a companion book to The One and Only Ivan for younger readers); and Sometimes You Fly (publishing in spring, 2018). For beginning readers, Katherine wrote Roscoe Riley Rules, a seven-book series. With her husband, Michael Grant, Katherine co-wrote Animorphs, a long-running series that has sold over 35 million books worldwide. Katherine lives in Marin County, California, with her family and assorted pets.

Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain wrote their first piece together when they were fifteen - a feature on Kansas City delis for their high school newspaper. They now live in Los Angeles, where Sarah and Liz are currently Writer-Producers on the Emmy-award winning show "The Shield" and James Patterson's upcoming "Women's Murder Detective Club" TV series debuting this fall on ABC.

I love reading books for children, young adults, new adults and all the old people after that. I love writing for pretty much the same audiences.

Randi Reisfeld has written over 60 books, primarily for ‘tweens and teens; non-fiction (celebrity biographies, two of which have made the New York Times best seller list); and fiction. She wrote the Clueless series, original stories based on the characters in the movie, as well as six books based on the character of TV's Moesha. Her original fiction series called T*Witches is a Disney Channel TV movie, broadcast October 2005. [NOTE: Although Witches is in the title, this series is completely wholesome, compelling, and humorous, and has nothing to do with the occult]. She is an editor at Scholastic, as well.

aka Jade Parker and also writes with her son as J.A. London (also writes romance under Lorraine Heath) Rachel Hawthorne, who also writes as Lorraine Heath and Jade Parker, is the daughter of a British beauty (her mother won second place in a beauty contest sponsored by Max Factor® during which she received a kiss from Caesar Romero-who played the Joker on the old Batman TV series) and a Texan who was stationed at Bovingdon while serving in the air force. Lorraine was born in Watford, Herts, England, but soon after moved to Texas. Her "dual" nationality has given her a love for all things British and Texan. She enjoys weaving both heritages through her stories. When she received her BA degree in psychology from the University of Texas, she had no idea she had gained a foundation that would help her to create believable characters—characters that are often described as “real people.” She writes for both adult and young adult readers. She received a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Americana historicals. Her novels have been recognized with a RITA, Romance Writers of America’s most prestigious award for excellence, a HOLT medallion award honoring outstanding literary fiction, a Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award, five Texas Gold Awards, the Golden Quill Award, the Rising Star Award as well as other awards and recognitions. Her novels have been selections of the Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Club. Her novels have appeared on bestseller lists, including USA Today, Waldenbooks, and most recently, the New York Times.