Author & Illustrator
Jon Klassen grew up in Niagara Falls, Canada, and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He is the New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of several books, including I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat, for which he won the Caldecott Medal. Two of his picture books have been named Caldecott Honor books: Sam and Dave Dig a Holeand Extra Yarn (winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award), both by Mac Barnett. You can visit him online at www.burstofbeaden.com.
Author
Mac Barnett is a New York Times-bestselling author of stories for children. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. Mac’s books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Awards, three E.B. White Read Aloud Awards, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award,Germany’s Jugendliteraturpreis, China’s Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Award, The Netherlands’ Silver Griffel, and Italy’s Premio Orbil. Mac lives in Oakland, California
Author
Adam Gidwitz (born February 14, 1982) is the author of the best selling children's books A Tale Dark and Grimm (2010), In a Glass Grimmly (2012), and The Grimm Conclusion (2013), all published by Dutton Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random House. He received a 2017 Newbery Honor for The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog (2016). In 2021, his book A Tale Dark and Grimm was adapted into an animated miniseries on Netflix.
Author
New York Times best-selling author Carole Boston Weatherford recently released Beauty Mark: A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe and R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. Her 50-plus books include the Caldecott Honor winners Freedom in Congo Square, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. She won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor for Becoming Billie Holiday, NAACP Image Awards for Mosesand for Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, the Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for The Legendary Miss Lena Horne, and an SCBWI Golden Kite and WNDB Walter Award for Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library. Among her most popular titles are Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins andThe Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip Hop. Baltimore-born, Weatherford teaches at Fayetteville State University In North Carolina.
UVU President
In 2018, following a rich and storied career in business, philanthropy, and academia, Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez became the seventh president of Utah Valley University. She is the first woman to serve on a full-time basis as UVU president. Raised in the slums of the Philippines, Tuminez rose to become a world leader in the fields of technology and political science, most recently serving as an executive at Microsoft. She is also the former vice dean of research and assistant dean of executive education at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.
