Greg Newbold

Greg Newbold has been drawing and painting for as long as he can remember. His gift was recognized at an early age and was fueled by supportive parents who kept him supplied with paints, pencils, paper and clay.

Greg earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Brigham Young University and an MFA from the Hartford Art School under the mentorship of such illustration industry legends as Murray Tinkelman, C.F Payne and Gary Kelley. His skill set has grown to include digital illustration and gallery oil painting to compliment his traditional drawing and painting. He feels fortunate to make his living doing what he loves most. Greg always felt it a privilege to make the world a more beautiful place through his paintings and reaches for that goal every time he picks up a brush.

Amy Newbold

Amy grew up making snowmen during Utah winters. She also drew horses and learned to read at age four. Amy is the author of If Monet Painted a Monster (2019), If Picasso Painted a Snowman (2017), and If Da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur (2018), as well as A Lady Most Alluring: A Grimm Regency Tale (2024). Amy wrote her first monster story in elementary school. If she were to paint a snowman, she would paint with dots like Georges Seurat. Her favorite dinosaur is a stegosaurus. Amy loves to travel and to spend time with her family. She is an avid board game player and has a deep appreciation for chocolate. She and her husband, illustrator Greg Newbold, enjoy hiking, camping, and taking road trips. When not traveling, Amy enjoys exploring the world through books.

Christine Day (Upper Skagit) grew up in Seattle, nestled between the sea, the mountains, and the pages of her favorite books. Her debut novel, I Can Make This Promise, was a best book of the year from NPR, as well as a Charlotte Huck Award Honor Book, and an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book. Her second novel, The Sea in Winter, was a Top 10 Indie Kids’ Next List selection, a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book. She also wrote She Persisted: Maria Tallchief, an early reader biography inspired by Chelsea Clinton’s bestselling picture book. Christine lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family.

Ellen Hopkins started writing stories when she was old enough to put words on paper, but she officially began her writing career in 1990 writing nonfiction books for children, including Air Devils and Orcas: High Seas Supermen.

Ellen has since written several young adult novels in verse, exposing teenage struggles such as drug addiction and mental illness. She holds the not entirely enviable title of “Most Banned Author” in America, but is a strong supporter of the first amendment and a soldier in the anti-book banning army. She also has two books written for middle grade students; What About Will and Closer To Nowhere. 

She loves gardening, cooking, canning, and makes a killer salsa!

Professor Schmidt is a prolific author of children's literature and young adult fiction. He has written dozens of books, including his most recent hits The Labors of Hercules Beal (Clarion; 2023) and Jupiter Rising (Clarion; 2024). He also contributed to the Star Wars anthology From A Certain Point of View: Star Wars (2017) through writing the only chapter from Yoda's point of view.

The Labors of Hercules Beal received the Josette Frank Award for Fiction from the Children's Book Committee and was listed as a Best Children's Book of the Year with Outstanding Merit in 2024. Schmidt’s work has appeared multiple times on the CBC’s Best Children’s Book of the Year list, including Straw into Gold, Mara's Stories, The Wonders of Donal O'Donnell, Trouble, What Came From the Stars, Orbiting Jupiter, Almost Time, and Celia Planted a Garden: The Story of Celia Thaxter and Her Island Garden.

In his free time, he enjoys vegetable gardening, cutting and splitting wood and collecting first editions of the Concord authors.

Lorena is an immigrant from Dominican Republic and raised in the U.S. She attended public schooling from first grade through high school. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in English Communication from Emmanuel College and her Master of Arts in English from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. She is an advocate for the practice of a culturally sustaining pedagogical approach in education. 

Lorena has been in the field of education, working in various settings, since 2001. Her extensive experience in myriad of settings ranging from extracurricular youth work to community spaces to the traditional classroom equips her to offer sound advice on strong teaching practices. Specifically, her classroom experience has been as an ELA teacher from grades 6th through 12th. 

Lorena has held educational leadership positions at the department level, school-wide level, and in the larger district level from designing curriculum to strategizing for improvement. She is the former Chair of the National Council of English Teacher’s Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English and she’s a co-founder of #DisruptTexts. She’s also Director of Pedagogy at EduColor.