Megan Stine is the Editor-in-Chief of Real U Guides and the author of more than 100 books for young readers including Trauma-Rama, an etiquette book for teenagers published by Seventeen magazine, and several titles in a series based on the popular 1990’s television series Party of Five. A frequent writer of books in the enormously popular Mary-Kate and Ashley series, she is the best-selling author of Likes Me, Likes Me Not and Instant Boyfriend. She has worked with CBS and ABC in developing comedy and drama television pilots, and has written comedy material for a well-known radio personality in New York. When she isn’t writing, she is a portrait and fine art photographer and a contributing photographer for the Real U series of guides.

Francess Lin Lantz (b. August 27, 1952, Trenton, New Jersey—d. November 22, 2004, Santa Barbara, California) was an American children's librarian turned fiction writer, whose fan base was mostly preteen and teenaged girls. For more than two decades, Lantz wrote more than 30 books, including several juvenile bestsellers. She won the American Library Association's Best Book for Young Adults award for her 1997 romance, Someone to Love. Stepsister from Planet Weird (Random House, 1996) was made into a Disney Channel television movie in 2000. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Lantz was raised in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She initially aspired to become a rock musician and composer. She graduated in 1974 from Dickinson College (in Pennsylvania) and from Simmons College (in Boston) in 1975, where she earned a master's degree in library sciences. She died in Santa Barbara, California in 2004 following a five years long battle with ovarian cancer; she was 52 years old.

Carol Ellis is an American author of young adult and children’s fiction. Her first novel, My Secret Admirer, was published in 1989 by Scholastic as part of their popular Point Thriller line. She went on to write over fifteen novels, including a few titles in the Zodiac Chillers series published by Random House in the mid-1990s, and two titles in The Blair Witch Files series for young adults, published by Bantam between 2000 and 2001.