AG Ford is a fast-rising star in the field of literature for children. His first book, BARACK (Katherine Tegen Books, 2008), written by Jonah Winter, quickly rose to become a New York Times bestselling title almost overnight. With BARACK, AG pays a visual tribute to the man who became America’s first African-American president. Following that [ Read the full article… ]
28 Days
Marguerite Abouet
Marguerite Abouet was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 1971, and sent to study in France at the age of 12, under the care of a great uncle. She now lives in a suburb of Paris, and remains closely connected to the country of her birth. Aya, her graphic novel series, taps into Abouet’s childhood [ Read the full article… ]
Monica McKayhan
Monica McKayhan writes adult and young adult fiction, with seven novels currently in print. Her first novel for young adults, Indigo Summer, was the launch title for Harlequin’s young adult imprint, Kimani TRU which made its debut in January of 2007. That same year in May, Indigo Summer was named to the Essence bestsellers list, another [ Read the full article… ]
Monalisa DeGross
When Monalisa DeGross set out to be a writer, she began by writing what she read — romance. It was an editor who turned her eye to the possibility of writing for children. DeGross considered the young people she knew. She thought about her love of words and the storytelling tradition in her mother’s family. Those [ Read the full article… ]
Shelia P. Moses
A native of Rich Square, North Carolina, Shelia P. Moses draws on her upbringing from her small hometown for many of her books. According to her website biography, she got her start as a writer at the young age, but I was interested to learn that she self-published her first book One More River to [ Read the full article… ]
Sherri Winston
A lifestyle columnist with The Sun-Sentinel in Florida, young adult author Sherri Winston has made writing her career. She is familiar with a life defined by deadlines, rewrites, and feedback from her editor and readers. She is also not afraid to tackle controversial issues within her writing, be it an analysis on the lack of [ Read the full article… ]
Cornelius Van Wright
From early on Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu had a few differences. He was an African-American and native New Yorker; she was born and raised in Taiwan. He was trained in the commercial arts; she was a fine artist. But they put their differences aside and learned from each other. Since then they’ve made [ Read the full article… ]
Lesa Cline-Ransome
As a child, Lesa Cline-Ransome dreamed of being an investigative journalist. She loved the idea of uncovering stories and crafting in-depth articles. Then, one summer she got a taste of the field through a workshop, and changed her mind. She longed for the freedom of inventing her own stories and adding her flavor to tales she wrote. Cline-Ransome found what she was searching for in the world of [ Read the full article… ]