Holly Jackson is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling series A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, an international sensation with millions of copies sold worldwide and a hit Netflix series. She graduated from the University of Nottingham, where she studied literary linguistics and creative writing and graduated with a master’s degree in English. She enjoys playing video games and watching true-crime documentaries so she can pretend to be a detective. She lives in London.

Kiese Laymon is a Black Southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the author of the genre-bending novel Long Division and the essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. He was also the recipient of the 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard and a MacArthur Genius grant. He currently teaches English and creative writing at Rice University. 

Elizabeth Lim grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she was raised on a hearty diet of fairy tales, myths, and songs. Before becoming an author, Elizabeth was a professional film and video game composer, and she still tends to come up with her best book ideas when writing near a piano. An alumna of Harvard College and the Juilliard School, she now lives in New York with her husband and her daughters. Elizabeth's bestselling novels include Six Crimson Cranes, The Dragon's Promise, Her Radiant Curse, Spin the Dawn, and Unravel the Dusk. She is also a contributor to Disney's A Twisted Tale series. 

Weshoyot Alvitre is a comic book artist and illustrator. She most recently worked as art director for the video game When Rivers Were Trails and as illustrator on the graphic novel Redrawing History with the Library Company of Philadelphia. Her books have received numerous awards and recognition, including the Eisner Award for Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream and the Prism Award for Hummingbird Boys in Moonshot Volume 2. She currently resides in Southern California with her husband and two children. 

Sasha Bonét is a writer and cultural critic based in New York City. Her criticism and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Aperture, New York Magazine, Vogue, and BOMB, among other publications. Bonét is a professor of creative writing for Columbia University and Barnard College.

Marcus Bridgewater, known on social media as Garden Marcus, is also the author of How to Grow: Nurture Your Garden, Nurture Yourself. A creator, educator, motivational speaker, and plant enthusiast, he is also the founder and CEO of Choice Forward, a company that offers life coaching, seminars, and workshops. He lives in Texas with his wife, son, and a thousand plants. 

Calista Brill is a writer and editor based in New England, where she lives with her family and either too many or too few house spiders, depending on how you feel about spiders. She has fallen off as many horses as she has ridden, which is a lot. Although Calista has yet to achieve her life's dream of petting a possum, she has read a lot of comic books, sewed a few quilts, and eaten an appropriate number of lime Popsicles (also a lot). 

Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and This Is Where We Live. An essayist and journalist, she has written for Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Wired, Self, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children. 

Kate Christensen has published nine novels, including The Great Man, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, and most recently Welcome Home, Stranger and The Arizona Triangle, as well as two food-centric memoirs, Blue Plate Special and How to Cook a Moose, which won the Maine Literary Award for Memoir. She lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her husband and their two dogs. 

Heather Clark earned her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Harvard University and her doctorate in English from Oxford University. A former Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, she is the author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath; The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes; and The Ulster Renaissance: Poetry in Belfast 1962-1972. Red Comet was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the LA Times Book Prize in Biography, and was a New York Times Top Ten Book of 2021. She lives outside of New York City. 

Originally from Florida, Chanel Cleeton grew up on stories of her family's exodus from Cuba following the events of the Cuban Revolution. Her passion for politics and history continued during her years spent studying in England, where she earned a bachelor's degree in International Relations from Richmond, The American International University in London, and a master's degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Chanel also received her Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law. 

Erin A. Craig is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows, Small Favors, and House of Roots and Ruin. She has always loved telling stories. After getting her BFA in Theatre Design and Production from the University of Michigan, she stage-managed tragic operas filled with hunchbacks, séances, and murderous clowns, then decided she wanted to write books that were just as spooky. An avid reader, decent quilter, rabid basketball fan, and collector of typewriters, brass figurines, and sparkly shoes, Erin makes her home in West Michigan with her husband and daughter. 

 Ayana Gray is a New York Times bestselling author. Her works have been translated into eleven languages across five continents. She currently lives and writes in Arkansas. I, Medusa is her adult debut. 

Sophie Elmhirst is an award-winning journalist who writes regularly for The Guardian Long Read and The Economist; her work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Harper’s Bazaar, among other places. She’s the winner of the British Press Award for Feature Writer of the Year and a Foreign Press Award. She lives in London and A Marriage at Sea is her first book. 

Danny Freeman, author of Danny Loves Pasta, is back. Known for his innovative, vibrant, and fun approach to cooking through his @DannyLovesPasta accounts on TikTok and Instagram where he’s amassed more than a million followers, Danny has built a devoted community of foodies who regularly turn to him for all things pasta and inventive Italian-American cuisine. His videos have garnered more than a billion views. Danny has used his social media presence to connect more deeply with his followers and let them into his world. 

Gabrielle Hamilton is the author of the New York Times bestseller Blood, Bones & Butter, which won the James Beard Foundation’s award for Writing and Literature, and the cookbook Prune. She is the chef/owner of Prune restaurant in New York City’s East Village. Hamilton received an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Michigan and contributed to the monthly “Eat” column for The New York Times Magazine for five years. Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, GQ, Bon Appétit, Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, Elle, and House Beautiful. 

B. Dylan Hollis is a social media personality who has tasked himself with baking and tasting unusual recipes from bygone years. Born and raised on the island of Bermuda, he later attended college at the University of Wyoming to further a career as a jazz pianist and arranger. He stumbled into both baking and social media fame at once in 2020, when quarantine boredom led him to film an investigation of an old cookbook he had collected from an estate sale. Hundreds of recipes later, Dylan now entertains millions across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram with his unique style and fast jokes. He is the author of the global and #1 New York Times bestseller Baking Yesteryear. 

Michelle Huneven is the author of Round Rock, Jamesland, Blame, Off Course, Search, and Bug Hollow. Her books have been New York Times Notable Books and finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of a Whiting Award for Fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a James Beard Award, and a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received her master’s in fine arts from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches creative writing at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

Rob Justus used to be an award-winning market researcher, now he’s an award-winning author, illustrator, and graphic novelist. His graphic novel series Death & Sparkles won the Manitoba Young Reader’s Choice Award in 2023. In 2022, Rob was selected as the illustrator for the prestigious TD Summer Reading Club in Canada. Rob has written and illustrated five picture books and two graphic novels with many more on the way. 

Named one of TIME’s most influential people of the year in 2024, Asma Khan is an Indian-born British chef widely recognized for her culinary expertise and role as a social change advocate in the food industry. Khan's culinary career began in earnest in 2012 with a supper club in her home, evolving into a pop-up in a London pub, and eventually leading to the opening of her restaurant, Darjeeling Express, in June 2017. Khan’s restaurant is known for its unique blend of street food, comfort food from Calcutta, and royal dishes from her Mughlai heritage. The food is cooked by an all-women team who began, like Khan, as home cooks. 

Ebony LaDelle (she/her) is the author of Love Radio—which was People magazine’s best book of the summer, an Audie Award Finalist, a Michigan Notable Book, an Apple Books best book, and was featured on the Today show. Before becoming an author, Ebony was a brand marketing director in book publishing and worked at Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, and HarperCollins. Ebony holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Howard University and a master’s degree in publishing from Pace University. 

Kyra Davis Lurie is a New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter. Her novels have been published in nine languages across six continents. Kyra was born and raised in California and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their utterly perfect dog, Potus. 

Annie Mare (she/they) writes queer contemporary young adult romance and cowrites queer romance and mysteries with her wife, Ruthie Knox. Mare lives with her wife, two teenagers, two dogs, multiple fish, one cat, four hermit crabs, and a bazillion plants in a very old house with a garden. 

J. H. Markert is a producer, screenwriter, husband, and father of two from Louisville, Kentucky, where he was also a tennis pro for 25 years, before hanging up the racquets for good in 2020. He graduated with a degree in history from the University of Louisville in 1997 and has been writing ever since. 

Liz Montague is the creator of Maybe an Artist, nominated for the NAACP Award and recipient of three starred reviews. Liz is a cartoonist, writer, and illustrator whose work focuses on the intersection of self and social awareness. She began contributing to the New Yorker in 2019 as a cartoonist and has illustrated for the U.S. Open, Food Network, Google, and the Joe Biden presidential campaign. Liz is the creator of the popular Liz at Large cartoon series, which previously ran in Washington City Paper, and is passionate about documenting social change and protest movements. 

Jason Mott has published four novels. His first novel, The Returned, was a New York Times bestseller and was turned into a TV series that ran for two seasons. He has a BFA in fiction and an MFA in poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary journals, and his most recent novel, Hell of a Book, was named the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 2021. 

Julian Brave Noisecat is a writer, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, champion powwow dancer, and student of Salish art and history. His writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. His first documentary, Sugarcane, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. NoiseCat is a proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq̓éscen̓ and descendant of the Líl̓wat Nation of Mount Currie. We Survived the Night is his first book. 

Ingrid Ochoa is a Mexican writer, illustrator, cat owner, and full time WEBTOON creator. Her most famous work is the number one WEBTOON series in the universe (of her mom’s heart) called The Kiss Bet. 

Karen Parkman holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The Jills has been supported by fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, the Sozopol Fiction Seminars, and the Vermont Studio Center. Karen's stories have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Joyland, and elsewhere. She is based in Knoxville. 

Vaishnavi Patel is the New York Times bestselling author of Kaikeyi and Goddess of the River. Her novels have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Condé Nast Traveler, Bustle, and more. She is a lawyer specializing in civil rights litigation, including issues of gender and racial justice. Ten Incarnations of Rebellion is her third novel. 

Jason Reynolds is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books for children and young adults. A 2024 MacArthur Fellow, Jason is best known for his novels All American Boys (co-written with Brendan Kiely), the Track series, and Long Way Down, which received Newbery, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Honors. Among his many accolades, Jason was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2020-2022. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program and lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com. 

Akeem S. Roberts is the illustrator of the J.D. the Kid Barber chapter book series, which was a School Library Journal Best Book of 2021, a Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2021, a Charlotte Huck Award Honor recipient, and a Texas Bluebonnet Master List selection. He has worked as an illustrator for Hasbro (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) and as a cartoonist for The New Yorker. The Class Pet Ghost Detective series is his author-illustrator debut. Visit Akeem at AkeemTeam.com to see more of his work. 

Peter Rosch is the author of multiple dark fictions born from the various addictions he chased while living in New York City as an award-winning writer and creative director. He’s many years sober now but remains an addict’s addict. What The Dead Can Do is his debut novel. 

Patrick Ryan is the author of the story collections The Dream Life of Astronauts (named one of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Louis Times-Dispatch, Literary Hub, Refinery29, and Electric Literature, and longlisted for The Story Prize) and Send Me. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, the anthology Tales of Two Cities, and elsewhere. The former associate editor of Granta, he is the current editor-in-chief of the literary magazine One Story. He lives in New York City. 

Arnie “ArnieTex” Segovia is a Texas-based pitmaster, content creator, and barbecue competitor. He’s known for his authentic Texas-Mexican recipes and his traditional blend of Southwest, Texas, and Norteño cooking techniques. Arnie is one of the most decorated cooks in the Texas competition barbecue circuit, amassing more than 100 combined Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion wins in his 20-year career. He loves sharing his recipes and passion for cooking with his 3 million followers across his @arnietex social media accounts. 

Sen Lin Yu (she/they) grew up in the Pacific Northwest and studied classical liberal arts and culture. They started writing in the Notes app of their phone during their baby’s nap time. Their collected online works have garnered over twenty million individual downloads and have been translated into twenty-three languages. They live in Portland with their family. Alchemised is their first novel. 

Leila Siddiqui is a Chicago born, Texan raised New Yorker who lives in Queens with her husband. She is also a digital marketing strategist in publishing. When she’s not writing, she spends her time worshipping her three very floofy cats, experimenting with vegan recipes from Instagram, and crocheting fun new projects. Her debut YA novel House of Glass Hearts was published in September 2021. 

Lisa Smith is a writer and filmmaker from South London born to Caribbean parents. She has an M.A. in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she won the Pat Kavanagh Prize in 2019. Her short story "Auld Lang Syne" won the 2017 Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, and she was a 2020 London Library Emerging Writer. 

Mia Sosa is a USA Today bestselling author of romantic comedies and contemporary romances that celebrate our multicultural world. She has received praise from The Washington Post, Bustle, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Popsugar, Buzzfeed, Oprah Daily, and many more. A New York City native, she now lives in Maryland with her college sweetheart, their two book-obsessed daughters, a gentle Cavalier King Charles spaniel, and one adorable rescue cat that rules them all.   

Maggie Stiefvater is the New York Times bestselling author of the Shiver trilogy, The Raven Cycle, and The Scorpio Races, among dozens of other YA fantasy novels. Her books have sold over five million copies around the world. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband and their two children.   

Ariel Sullivan lives in Connecticut with her husband, two sons, and their two French bulldogs. Growing up a military brat, Ariel moved every two years as a perpetual new kid; Ariel often observed from the outskirts, where a deep love of reading was born. When she isn’t writing, Ariel loves to read everything from poetry to psychology, bake with her sons, listen to live music, and travel. Conform is her first novel. 

Victor Suthammanont is a lawyer and author. Hollow Spaces is his debut novel. He lives in New York City. 

With a background in photography and children’s publishing, Jennifer Trevelyan is now a full-time writer living in Wellington, New Zealand, with her husband, son, daughter, dog and cat. When not at her writing desk, Jennifer can be found in the garden. 

Mark Waddell grew up on the cold, windswept prairies of western Canada and later earned a Ph.D. in the history of science, medicine, and technology from the Johns Hopkins University. After teaching at Michigan State University for fifteen years, he and his husband moved to Vancouver Island. When not writing, he plays the viola in the Civic Orchestra of Victoria, walks his dogs on the beach, and slays fearsome monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. 

Cassidy Wasserman is an artist in the game industry and is making her Graphic novel debut with On Guard! When she’s not creating, Cassidy enjoys épée fencing, listening to musicals, and agility training with her dog, Zag. Cassidy lives in the mountains of Maine, where she is working on her next graphic novel. 

Mary Watson is from Cape Town and now lives on the west coast of Ireland. She’s worked as an art museum guide, library assistant, theatre duty manager, and an actor in children’s musicals. She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town where she taught for many years. She won the Caine Prize and the Philida Award, and her YA novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie Medal. The Cleaner is her worldwide adult debut. 

Carole Boston Weatherford is a two-time NAACP Image Award winner, ALA Children’s Literature Legacy Award winner, and the author of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award–winning Standing in the Need of Prayer; Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, which won the Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Awards; Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom; and the Caldecott Honor books 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 also serves as the 2025-2026 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Weatherford was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where she now resides. 

Daniel H. Wilson is a Cherokee citizen and author of the New York Times bestselling Robopocalypse and its sequel Robogenesis, as well as How to Survive a Robot Uprising, The Clockwork Dynasty, and The Andromeda Evolution (an authorized sequel to The Andromeda Strain). He earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as master's degrees in machine learning and robotics. Wilson lives in Portland, Oregon. 

Yueh Yang is a Canadian immigrant born to a Korean mother and Taiwanese father. Moving as a child from the small summer island of Taiwan to the vast winter wonderland of Canada set in her a love and awe for the beauty of different worlds. Her works are a colorful blend of science fiction and fantasy, and often explore the premise of barriers, be it language or otherwise. She is a piano teacher by day, and an avid consumer of all things movies and anime by night. She lives in Toronto. 

Ron Block is a Branch Manager in the Cuyahoga County Public Library System in Cleveland, Ohio. His passion for libraries, reading and cooking have fueled non-traditional library programs and community collaborations. He was named a 2020 Library Journal Mover and Shaker and serves as a judge for the James Beard Cookbook Awards. Ron has recently become the Podcast Host for https://friendsandfiction.com/, representing 4 NYT Bestselling authors. 

Andrienne Cruz has been a public librarian at Azusa City Library since 2005. She loves recommending books and writes adult book reviews for Booklist and adult title read-alikes for NoveList. She is a former LibraryReads board member and currently works as a reference librarian and e-book selector for adults, teens, and children. 

Allie Stevens Gosselink is the director at the Calhoun County Library in Hampton, AR. She was a 2018 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, a 2018 ALA Emerging Leader, and is a member-at-large of the YALSA Board of Directors. Allie wrote SLJ’s September 2024 Great Books column, “Thrills & Chills: truly scary YA books for horror fans.” 

Mandi Harris (Cherokee Nation) is a children’s librarian and PhD student at the University of Washington Information School, where she uses Indigenous Systems of Knowledge to examine children’s literature, education, and the futures of libraries. She is an American Library Association Spectrum Doctoral Fellow. Mandi has a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Washington and has a decade of experience working in youth services at public libraries.  

Sarah Hashimoto is an editor for Library Journal, where she focuses on audiobooks, databases, and reference reviews. She has chaired the American Library Association’s Collection Development and Evaluation Section and serves as a judge for the Audies Awards. Sarah is a dedicated listener and is passionate about encouraging people of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities to read with their ears.   

Yesica Hurd is a Children's Librarian and writes reviews for Horn Book. She also served on the 2023 Newbery Committee. 

Jane Jorgenson has worked for Madison Public Library as a page, clerk, librarian and supervisor and is part of the readers services team. She was able to indulge her love of mysteries by working in a mystery book store for 10 years – she spent more than she made, if that gives you an idea. And she has put that knowledge to use in creating content at Madison Public Library and reviewing for Library Journal. 

Clair Quaintance has been working with tweens and teens in school libraries since 2010 and loving every minute of it.  

Anjelica Rufus (she/her) is a reference librarian at Prospect Heights Public Library District (IL) where she selects the world languages and TV/movies collections. She reviews performing arts, social sciences, and audiobooks for Library Journal and is a 2023 Reviewer of the Year. She co-chairs the Illinois Library Association Diversity Committee and is a member of the American Library Association (ALA) Rainbow Round Table Over the Rainbow Book List Committee. Anjelica received a Master of Library and Information Science from Dominican University and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Roosevelt University. 

Ashley Rayner is a research librarian at NORC at the University of Chicago. She has been an academic and public librarian as well, all within the Chicagoland area. Ashley loves reading any genre but she has a special love for speculative fiction, historical fiction, and thrillers. She started writing book reviews for Booklist in 2020 and they help her stay connected to fiction as a librarian at a social science research organization. When she's not reading or researching, Ashley can be found playing video games, cooking, planning her next karaoke debut song, tweeting at @ashley_rayner, or hanging out with her husband and two kids. 

Melissa Thom, MA, (she/her) is a teacher librarian at Bristow Middle School in West Hartford, CT. She has been an educator for 21 years and is the immediate past President of the Connecticut Association of School Librarians (CASL). She was a 2019 AASL Social Media Superstar Reader Leader finalist and a Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2022. In her free time, she sews #LiteracyInspiredCrafts for her Joyful Making Etsy Shop. Find Melissa on X/Instagram @MsThomBookitis and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/melissathomjoyfullearning 

Allison Tran is a Library & Cultural Services Supervisor for the City of Mission Viejo in California. She's dedicated to fostering self-expression, curiosity, and empathy in the community through art and literature. Before earning her Masters of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University in 2006, Allison taught English in Japan.