Author/Illustrator
studiolvs.com
Laura Vaccaro Seeger is a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator and a 2-time winner of the Caldecott Honor Award, winner of the New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award, the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Best Picture Book, and a 2-time winner of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Award. Laura’s paintings have been exhibited at many museums and galleries including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Laura grew up on Long Island, New York, worked as an animator, artist, designer, and editor in the network television business in Manhattan. She started drawing at age 2, and hasn’t stopped since.
Author
stevesheinkin.com
Steve Sheinkin is the award-winning author of several fascinating books for young people on American history, including The Notorious Benedict Arnold, which won the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for nonfiction. Steve calls himself a “recovering history textbook author,” and now writes nonfiction books that read like international spy thrillers! His recent book Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—The World's Most Dangerous Weapon was a Newbery Honor Book, National Book Award finalist, and winner of the Sibert Award as well as the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. His most recent book, The Port Chicago 50 includes disaster, mutiny, and a civil rights showdown at a naval base during World War II. Steve lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Author
jennielsen.com
Jennifer A. Nielsen is the New York Times bestselling author of The False Prince and The Runaway King, the first two books in the critically-acclaimed Ascendance Trilogy. She has also written The Underworld Chronicles, a humorous middle-grade fantasy series. Jennifer lives in northern Utah with her husband, their three children, and a perpetually muddy dog.
Author
Barbara A. Marinak received a Ph.D. in literacy from the University of Maryland, College Park and is faculty at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland. Prior to joining the faculty at Mount St. Mary’s, Dr. Marinak spent more than two decades in public education and has held a variety of leadership positions with the International Reading Association, and currently co-chairs the IRA’s Response to Intervention (RTI) Task Force, and on the National Joint Commission on Learning Disabilities. Dr. Marinak is a co-author of Maximizing Motivation for Literacy Learning: Grades K-6, as well as a co-author of Essential Readings on Motivation. Her research interests include reading motivation, intervention practices, and the use of informational text. Dr. Marinak’s work can be found in The Reading Teacher, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, The Journal of Educational Research, Literacy Research and Instruction, and Young Children.