Marisa Churchill has worked as a pastry chef in some of San Francisco’s most notable restaurants. She’s been called “one of the city’s top pastry chefs,” by Michael Bauer, head food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle for over thirty years. She was a competitor on Top Chef season 2, and has appeared multiple times on Food Network Challenge. She is the author of Sweet & Skinny, as well as My Sweet & Skinny Life. Her recipes have appeared in everything from Food & Wine to Oprah.com. She has written for Huffington Post, Chowhound, and 7x7. When Marisa isn’t baking or writing, she can be found chasing after her toddler, and trying to please the most difficult food critic she’s ever faced…her six-year-old daughter.
Kari Cobham is an award-winning journalist and poet who works in the non-profit sector to support journalists’ mental health. She has worked in newsrooms in the United States and the Caribbean as both a staff writer and in leadership. A graduate of Yale University’s Thread media storytelling program and a TEDx speaker, Kari has been published in the New York Times, CNN, Vox, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Poynter, Trinidad Guardian, Caribbean Beat and SHE magazines, among others.
Nicole D. Collier, Ph.D. is the author of the debut middle grade novel, Just Right Jillian (Clarion/Versify2022). An advocate of self-expression, Nicole’s stories illuminate the challenges and rewards that come when learning to be true to yourself. She is a Georgia native and renaissance soul, and has been known to run, dance, and turn cartwheels on sunny days.
Robin Davies was born in London and raised between Washington, DC and the UK. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children, where she has worked in TV writer’s rooms for Showtime, Amazon, NBC and ABC. Her YA pilot "The Girl's Guide to Growing Up" was a finalist in the Script Pipeline TV Writing Contest and received commendation as part of the Roadmap Writers Support Staff Initiative.
Robin studied writing at the University of East Anglia and UCLA, and took part in Curtis Brown Creative’s Writing YA and Middle Grade Fiction course and Sony TV’s Emerging Writers Program.
Shiva Delsooz is an Iranian-Canadian illustrator with an educational background in animation. Her debut as an illustrator is SO LOUD (Annick Press, 2024). Her next illustrated project is THE EIDI BAG from Owlkids Press launching in 2025. In her free time she enjoys drinking tea while watching foreign films to learn new things from different cultures.
Hadley Douglas is a wine expert and the owner of the Urban Grape, a popular wine store in Boston. She is the author of Drink Progressively: From White To Red, Light To Full-Bodied, A Bold New Way To Pair Wine With Food. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, T.J. Douglas, and their two sons.
T.J. Douglas is a wine expert and the owner of the Urban Grape, a popular Boston wine store. He has been profiled by the New York Times, Food & Wine, Imbibe, Real Simple, Health, MarketWatch, Eater National, Boston Magazine, Boston Common, and the Boston Globe, among others. TJ has been featured on shows such as Basic Black (WGBH), The Hub Today (NBC), Dining Playbook (NESN), New England Living (CBS), and Chronicle (WCVB), and is a frequent guest wine educator at corporate meetings and retreats.He lives with his wife, Hadley, and their two sons in Boston, Massachusetts.
Jen Swann Downey is the author of The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand and The Ninja LIbrarians: Sword in the Stacks (Sourcebooks, 2014 & 2016). Jen is haunted by that post-apocalyptic Twilight Zone episode in which a book-lover finally has the time to read all the books he wants, but then steps on his eyeglasses. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband and three children.
Rachel Elliott is an author-illustrator of comics and books for young people, whose debut, The Real Riley Mays, is forthcoming in 2022. She teaches writing and comics classes at the University of Kentucky’s Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies. In 2016, the Kentucky Foundation for Women awarded Rachel with a grant for a graphic novel project. Rachel grew up queer during the 1980s in rural Oklahoma. Besides drawing, writing, and teaching, she’s also worked as a plaster-caster, assistant zookeeper, crumpet baker, and Americorps Vista service-member at a children’s museum. She’s a big fan of baseball, tacos, cats, and female comedians. She now lives in Kentucky with her dashing partner Carol.
Kirbi Fagan is a writer and illustrator for readers of all ages but specializes in children's literature. She is recognized for her cover art in adult, YA, and middle grade fiction as well as her numerous covers for comic books. Kirbi was traditionally trained as an oil painter but now works in mixed media techniques including digital tools. Her work is known for their magical themes, nostalgic moods and feminine heroines.
Barbara Larmon Failing is the author of the picture book Lasso Lou and Cowboy McCoy (Dial Books, 2003). She lives in Oklahoma with her family.
Amy Farrier is an illustrator, writer and lifelong fan of picture books. She has a BA in English from Rice University and works in watercolor and pen and ink, embracing all the beautiful surprises that brings. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her young daughter, overgrown garden and spicy cat.
Colleen Frakes grew up on a prison island (really!) then moved to the mainland to attend the Center for Cartoon Studies. She was awarded a 2007 Xeric Grant for her first graphic novel, Tragic Relief, and in 2009 won an Ignatz Award for her second book, Woman King. She has created comics for Zest Books, Mirage Studios (Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Dark Horse, and many others. She currently lives in Seattle with her spouse, daughter, and cat.
Nina Mukerjee Furstenau is a journalist, author, and editor of the Foodstory book series for the University of Iowa Press. She was a Fulbright Global research scholar (2018-19), is on the board of Media for Change, and has won the MFK Fisher Book Award, a Kansas Notable Book Award, and more. She is the author of Green Chili and Other Imposters (University of Iowa Press, 2021) and Biting Through The Skin: An Indian Kitchen in the American Heartland. Her work has appeared in Tasty! Mozambique, Savor Missouri, River Hills Country Food and Wine, and elsewhere. She lives in Missouri.
Cynthia Gabriel is a doula, a childbirth educator, a medical anthropologist with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a mother of three. She attends births and leads women’s and parents’ support groups in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area, where she lives with her family. She is the author of the best-selling book Natural Hospital Birth and The Fourth Trimester Companion.
Arun Gandhi is the fifth grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi, also known as Mahatma Gandhi. A journalist for more than thirty years for the India Times, Arun now writes a blog for theWashington Post. Arun serves as President of the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute and travels the world speaking to governmental leaders, as well as to university and high school students alike, about the practices of peace and nonviolence. Arun is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed Grandfather Gandhi picture books, co-authored with Bethany Hegedus, illustrated by Evan Turk (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster). He lives in Rochester, New York.
Joy Givens is a pun-slinging, hymn-singing storyteller and the lucky mother of four small superheroes. Raised in a big Midwestern family, Joy now lives in the blossoming literary community of Pittsburgh. She has written several award-winning short stories and writes middle grade and YA fiction to celebrate the fresh, fierce, fantastic side of life.
Kate Goodwin writes slightly weird stories about slightly weird teenagers. She’s fascinated by the tangle of thoughts and feelings we all experience and loves stories with a strong psychological bent. A former high school teacher, she earned her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and now lives and writes in Atlanta.
Sylvia Sellers-García, who writes middle-grade and YA fiction as S.E. Grove, lives north of Boston and teaches history at Boston College. She loves reading maps, exploring historical-fantastical worlds, and finding forgotten things in pockets. She is the author of the YA science-fiction novel, The Waning Age, as well as the New York Times bestselling middle-grade novel, The Glass Sentence—the first book in the Mapmakers trilogy.
Alexandra Hall is a Boston food writer and co-author of Fresh and Honest: Food from the Farms of New England and the Kitchen of Henrietta's Table.