Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of fourteen previous novels, including the bestsellers Squeeze Me, Razor Girl, Bad Monkey, Star Island, Nature Girl, Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, and Lucky You, and six bestselling children’s books, Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp, Skink, and Squirm. His most recent work of nonfiction is Assume the Worst.

Bindi Irwin is a passionate wildlife conservationist who has inherited her parents’ love for wildlife and wild places. Born to Wildlife Warriors Steve and Terri Irwin, Bindi is a determined soul, destined to make a positive difference on the planet. She, her husband, and their young daughter, Grace, live in Australia and dedicate their lives to helping animals and the environment. 

Amy Larocca is an award-winning American journalist. She spent 20 years working at New York magazine as both Fashion Director and Editor at Large. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Town & Country and the London Review of Books, among others. She lives with her family in New York and North London.

Holly Brickley studied English at UC Berkeley and received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Originally from Hope, British Columbia, she now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their two daughters. Deep Cuts is her first novel.

William Boyle is the author of eight books set in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born and raised, including his debut, Gravesend; the story collection Death Don’t Have No Mercy; The Lonely Witness, nominated for the Hammett Prize; A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, an Amazon Best Book of 2019; City of Margins, a Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020; and Shoot the Moonlight Out, listed by CrimeReads as one of the ten best noir novels of 2021. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi. 

Daisy Buchanan is the author of several novels and nonfiction books, including CAREERING, HOW TO BE A GROWN UP, and now READ YOURSELF HAPPY. She hosts the "You're Booked" podcast, where she interviews iconic writers about the way their reading habits have shaped their work. She's the founder of the Creative Confidence Clinic on Substack. 

Kat Cho is a New York Times best-selling YA author who loves to incorporate her Korean heritage in her writing, especially if it involves describing food. She's the author of Wicked Fox and Vicious Spirits. Kat lives and works in New York City. 

Jinwoo Chong is the author of the novel Flux, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and VCU Cabell First Novel awards, a New York Times Editors' Choice, and named a best book of the year by Esquire, GQ, and Cosmopolitan. His short stories and other work have appeared in The Southern Review, Guernica, The Rumpus, LitHub, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Electric Literature. He lives in New York. 

Liv Constantine is the pseudonym of Lynne Constantine, a New York Times and internationally bestselling author.  She is the co-author of The Last Mrs. Parrish, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick, and her critically acclaimed books have been praised by the Washington Post, USA Today, the Sunday Times, People magazine, and Good Morning America, among many others, with more than two million copies sold worldwide. Her work has been translated into twenty-nine languages, is available in thirty-four countries, and is in development for both television and film. Lynne has a Masters Degree from Johns Hopkins University. When she’s not writing, you can find her curled up with her Labrador and Golden Retriever, reading a good book or binge-watching the latest limited series. 

Matthew Cordell is the author and illustrator of many celebrated picture books for children, including the Caldecott Medal winner Wolf in the Snow, Evergreen, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, Hello Neighbor!: The Kind and Caring World of Mr. Rogers, a Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, and the Cornbread and Poppy series, which Booklist in a starred review has called “a rewarding choice for young readers.” Matthew lives outside of Chicago with his wife, author Julie Halpern, and their two children. 

Ron Currie is the award-winning author of five novels. He has won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, the Addison M. Metcalf Award, the Alex Award, and the Pushcart Prize. His books have been translated into fifteen languages, and his short fiction and nonfiction have received recognition in Best American anthologies. As a screenwriter he worked most recently on the Apple TV+ series Extrapolations and has developed projects with AMC Studios, Amblin Television, and ITV America. He lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches in the University of Southern Maine Stonecoast MFA program. 

Laurie L. Dove is a reporter and editor whose work has appeared in numerous publications and garnered several honors for outstanding journalism. She graduated with a master’s degree in creative writing and literature from Harvard University. She is an adjunct professor who currently lives and writes in Kansas. Find her at lauriedove.com. 

Layne Fargo has a background in theater, women’s studies, and library science, so it’s only fitting that she now writes deliciously dramatic, unapologetically feminist stories for a living. She’s the author of psychological thrillers They Never Learn and Temper, as well as co-author on the bestselling Young Rich Widows series, and her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. Layne lives in Chicago with her partner, their pets, and an ever-expanding collection of books she’s definitely going to read before she dies. 

Jasmine Guillory is a New York Times bestselling author. Her novels include Drunk on Love, The Wedding Date, the Reese's Book Club selection The Proposal. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Bon Appetit, and Time. Jasmine is a frequent book contributor on the Today show. She lives in Oakland, California.

Whitney D. Grandison is the author of YA novels A Love Hate Thing and The Right Side of Reckless. She currently lives in Akron, Ohio, with her cats.  

Sarah Harman is an American living in London. She worked most recently as a foreign correspondent for NBC News, reporting on-air for Today, Nightly News, and MSNBC. She’s a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Her debut novel All the Other Mothers Hate Me won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize in 2023. 

Faith Erin Hicks is a writer and artist living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her published works include The Adventures of Superhero Girl, Friends with Boys, The Nameless City trilogy, Pumpkinheads (with Rainbow Rowell), One Year at Ellsmere and the young adult novel Comics Will Break Your Heart. She has won two Eisner Awards, and Pumpkinheads was a New York Times bestseller. 

E.K. Johnston is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several YA novels, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist The Story of Owen and Star Wars: Ahsoka. Her novel A Thousand Nights was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. The New York Times called The Story of Owen "a clever first step in the career of a novelist who, like her troubadour heroine, has many more songs to sing" and in its review of Exit, Pursued by a Bear, the Globe & Mail called Johnston "the Meryl Streep of YA," with "limitless range." 

Angie Kang is a Chinese American writer and illustrator living in LA. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Narrative, The Believer, and elsewhere, and has been generously supported by MacDowell and other organizations. Angie graduated from the Brown-RISD Dual Degree Program with a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University. She enjoys painting places she remembers and places she would like to go. 

Martha Hall Kelly is the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls, Lost Roses, Sunflower Sisters, and The Golden Doves. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Martha was inspired to write this novel by her mother's family, the Smiths, who settled on Martha's Vineyard in 1891. She received journalism degrees from both Syracuse and Northwestern Universities and worked as an advertising copywriter for many years before becoming a novelist. With more than two million copies of her books sold and translated in fifty countries, Martha lives in Litchfield, Connecticut, and Hobe Sound, Florida. 

Katie Kitamura is the author of five novels. Her most recent, Intimacies, was named one of the “10 Best Books of 2021” by The New York Times and was also one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year; it was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Her previous novel, A Separation, was a New York Times Notable Book. Kitamura’s work has been translated into more than twenty languages and is being adapted for film and television. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature as well as fellowships from the Lannan, Jan Michalski and Santa Maddalena Foundations. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University. 

Florence Knapp has previously written a non-fiction book about a centuries-old method of quilt making, as well as contributing to a book for the Victoria & Albert Museum. She lives just outside London with her husband and their dog. Their two children have now flown the nest. The Names is Knapp’s debut novel and will be translated into twenty languages. 

Susanna Kwan is an artist and writer from San Francisco. Awake in the Floating City is her first novel.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur. After leaving Google and failing as a startup founder, she returned to university to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. By documenting her journey and in public, she has amassed a loyal audience of more than 100,000 newsletter subscribers, becoming the foremost expert in systematic curiosity applied to productivity, creativity, and mental health. She currently runs Ness Labs, an online school for curious minds to learn how to achieve their goals without sacrificing their mental health, with more than 2,000 students. Simultaneously, Le Cunff conducts research into the neuroscience of learning and curiosity at King’s College London. She teaches “Neuroscience in the Digital World” for the BSc in Psychology & Neuroscience and serves as an advisor to the Applied Neuroscience Association. 

Kerry Madden-Lunsford is a regular contributor to the LA Times OpEd page. For several years, she directed the creative writing program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she is still a professor, and she taught in Antioch University’s MFA program in Los Angeles for a decade. She is the author of the picture book Ernestine’s Milky Way. She also wrote the Maggie Valley Trilogy, which includes Gentle’s Holler, Louisiana’s Song, and Jessie’s Mountain. Her first novel, Offsides, was a New York Public Library Pick for the Teen Age. Kerry lives in Birmingham, Alabama. 

Deborah Marcero is the author and illustrator of the picture book bestsellers In a Jar, which was called "stunning" in a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and "beguiling" by the Wall Street Journal, and Out of a Jar, which was an Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year and was called "simultaneously simple and profound" in a starred review from School Library Journal. 

Brittany Mazique discovered from an early age that most of the characters in her favorite books did not share her skin color. So she just reimagined them that way instead. She is the author of The Little Mermaid: Adventures on Land and Delphine Denise and the Mardi Gras Prize.

Natalie Naudus is one of the most beloved audiobook narrators working today. She has won an Audie award and eleven Earphones awards, and maintains a robust social media following. She lives with her family on a mountain in Virginia.

Deb Perelman is a self-taught home cook, photographer, podcaster, the creator of SmittenKitchen.com, and the author of three New York Times bestselling cookbooks including her most recent, Smitten Kitchen Keepers. Deb lives in New York City with her family. 

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Wench (2010), Balm (2015), and most recently Take My Hand (2022) which was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, Essence, NBC News, and elsewhere. Amazon named Take My Hand one of the Top 20 Books of 2022. The novel was awarded a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and Fiction Award from Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It has been longlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.  A three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship, Dolen is widely considered a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life. Her forthcoming novel Happy Land will be published in April 2025. She is Associate Professor in the MFA Program at American University in Washington, DC. 

Stephanie Phillips is an American comics writer whose work has appeared with a myriad of publishers. After earning a PhD in rhetoric and composition at the University of South Florida, she started writing for both Dark Horse and DC Comics, before becoming a breakout star with her instant classic run on DC’s Harley Quinn. Stephanie continued her success with her widely acclaimed creator-owned series Grim, published by BOOM! Studios, solidifying her as one of the industry’s hottest writing talents. For Marvel, she has written acclaimed titles about iconic duos such as Rogue & Gambit and Black Widow & Hawkeye, and is currently penning two smash-hit series in Spider-Gwen: The Ghost Spider and Phoenix. 

Greg Pizzoli is the creator of the Baloney and Friends graphic novel series, as well as the author and illustrator of the award-winning picture books The Watermelon Seed, Good Night Owl, and The Book Hog. He also writes nonfiction for kids, including the New York Times Best Illustrated title Tricky Vic, and he is the illustrator of the Jack series by Mac Barnett. Greg Pizzoli works in a studio he shares with his wife, Kay Healy, who is a printmaker and fiber artist. They live in South Philadelphia with their two daughters, dog, and cats. 

Karen Russell is the author of five books of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. She has received MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Born and raised in Miami, Florida, she now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, son, and daughter. The Antidote is her second novel. 

Marie Rutkoski is the New York Times bestselling author of books for children and young adults, including The Shadow Society and the Kronos Chronicles, which includes The Cabinet of Wonders. She published her first novel for adults, Real Easy, in 2022. Rutkoski is a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College and lives in Brooklyn with her family. 

Lyla Sage lives in the Wild West with her loyal companion, a sweet, old, blind rescue pitbull. She writes romance that feels like her favorite things: sunshine and big blue skies. She is also the author of Done and Dusted, Swift and Saddled and Lost and Lassoed. When she’s not writing, she’s reading. 

Shifa Saltagi Safadi is the author of Kareem Between and several picture books, including The Gift of Eid. She has a bachelor’s degree in English literature, teaches ELA at a local middle school, and reviews Muslim books on her blog, Muslim Mommy Blog. Shifa was born in Syria and immigrated to the US with her parents as a young girl. She lives near Chicago with her husband and four children. 

Dr. Sunita Sah is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. She leads groundbreaking research on influence, authority, compliance, and defiance. A trained physician, she practiced medicine in the United Kingdom and worked as a management consultant for the pharmaceutical industry. She currently teaches executives, leaders, and students in healthcare and business. Dr. Sah is a sought-after international speaker and consultant, advisor to government agencies, and former Commissioner of the National Commission on Forensic Science. Her multidisciplinary research and analyses have been widely published in leading academic journals and media entities including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harvard Business Review, and Scientific American. She lives with her husband and son in New York. 

Liz Garton Scanlon is the author of nearly 20 beloved picture books, including All the World, which received a Caldecott Honor and which School Library Journal called "perfection" in a starred review. Her other picture books include I Want a Boat! and Thank You, Garden, as well as the upcoming The World's Best Class Plant (May 2023.) Scanlon is on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a frequent and popular presenter at schools, festivals and conferences. She lives in Austin, Texas. 

Cavan Scott is a New York Times bestselling author, comic, screen and audio writer. One of the lead story architects of Lucasfilm's bestselling multimedia initiative, Star Wars: The High Republic, Cavan has worked in audio drama for nearly 25 years, having produced, script edited and written award-winning audios for Big Finish Productions, Audible and Penguin Random House Audio. His latest drama, Star Wars: The High Republic - Tempest Breaker, is out now. An Audie finalist, he lives in the United Kingdom with his wife and daughters. His lifelong passions include folklore, the music of David Bowie and scary movies. He owns far too much LEGO. 

Brendan Nicholaus Slocumb was raised in Fayetteville, NC, and holds a degree in music education (with concentrations in violin and viola) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For more than twenty years he has been a public and private school music educator and has performed with orchestras throughout northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.

Karen Thompson Walker's New York Times bestseller The Age of Miracles has been translated into twenty-nine languages and was named one of the best books of the year by People, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Financial Times, among others. Her most recent novel is The Dreamers, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and was named one of the best books of the year by Glamour, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping. Born and raised in San Diego, Walker is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program. She lives with her husband, the novelist Casey Walker, and their two daughters in Portland, and is an associate professor of creative writing. 

Milo Todd is a Massachusetts Cultural Council grantee and a Lambda Literary Fellow. His work has appeared in Slice Magazine and elsewhere. He is co–editor in chief of Foglifter and teaches creative writing to queer and trans adults. 

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Dan Watters is a writer from London, England. He is the co-creator of Home Sick Pilots, Coffin Bound & Limbo for Image Comics, as well as The Seasons Have Teeth for Boom Studios. Currently the writer of Nightwing and Batman: Dark Patterns for DC Comics, he has also written for Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, and Skybound. Mostly he’s asked to write villains and isn’t sure if that should worry him a bit.

Charmaine Wilkerson is the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, which was named a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick and adapted as a Hulu streaming series by Oprah Winfrey and Kapital Entertainment. She is an American writer who has lived in Jamaica and Italy. A graduate of Barnard College and Stanford University, she is a former journalist whose award-winning short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. 

Jemimah Wei was born and raised in Singapore. She was a 2022-2024 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and is the recipient of fellowships, scholarships, and awards from Columbia University, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Singapore’s National Arts Council, and more. Her fiction has won the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and has been published in Guernica, Narrative, and Nimrod, among other publications. She was recently named one of Narrative’s “30 below 30” writers, recognized by the Best of the Net Anthologies, and is a Francine Ringold Award for New Writers honoree. For close to a decade, prior to moving to the US to earn an MFA at Columbia University where she was a Felipe P. De Alba Fellow, she worked as a host for various broadcast and digital channels, and has written and produced short films and travel guides for brands like Laneige, Airbnb, and Nikon. 

Cynthia Weiner has had a long career writing and teaching fiction. Her short stories have been published in Ploughshares, The Sun, and Epiphany, and her story, “Boyfriends,” was awarded a Pushcart Prize. She is also the assistant director of The Writers Studio in New York City. A Gorgeous Excitement, her first novel, was inspired by her upbringing on New York’s Upper East Side in the 1980s, and particularly by the notorious “Preppy Murder” of 1986. Weiner now lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. 

Emily Bowles has a PhD in English and a certificate in Women's Studies from Emory University, where her research spanned early modern women's writing and feminist literary theory. After twenty years of college-level teaching, she transitioned into nonprofit management as a grant writer for organizations supporting basic needs, domestic violence prevention, and sexual assault. She's been among Library Journal's reviewers for seven years and focuses primarily on the social sciences and lifestyle books, with occasional forays into fiction. 

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. 

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.   

Jen Jumba has worked in public libraries for the last nine years. Most recently, Jen works as the Coordinator of The People's University at Cleveland Public Library. Along with the City of Cleveland, Cleveland Public Library and over thirty community organizations, Jen is also co-managing a city-wide Cleveland READS initiative. Jen received her Masters of Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh and her Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Certificate from Case Western Reserve University. She is a member of the Public Library Association and American Library Association.   

After 7 years of being a teacher, Heather Lassley felt a calling to another area in the school, the library. Heather has worked in Frisco ISD as a librarian for 13 years in the middle school area. Her passions are collection development, teaching research, and building a library for all students.  

Elizabeth Libberton is the library media specialist at St. Charles East High School in St. Charles Illinois. She currently writes book reviews for School Library Journal, and is a monthly blog for AASL Knowledgequest Journal. She is a member of the ALA Awards Selection Committee. Also, she is a member of the steering committee for the AISLE Lincoln Book Award. 

Dontaná McPherson-Joseph is an avid reader and dedicated librarian with a passion for curating diverse collections. An active member of the American Library Association, she currently serves as Chair of the Rainbow Round Table. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her pets Monroe and Pistachio, and several overflowing bookshelves. 

Kate Merlene is the Adult Services librarian supervisor at Cuyahoga County Public Library’s Orange Branch, where she has been a longtime, passionate advocate for connecting people with their next great read. She has moderated fiction panels for Library Journal’s Day of Dialog and is member of CCPL’s author event team. She also writes Library Journal’s daily column Book Pulse, which provides current title, author, and media information for librarians who buy and recommend books. 

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. 

Desiree Thomas is a Youth Services Librarian in Worthington Ohio. She has worked in libraries for the past 22 years and believes that our lives are made better when we share stories and learn about each other. She is an avid gardener, yogi, and reader’s advisory enthusiast.   

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. 

Nicole Williams, a lifelong bookworm and an academic librarian of shorter duration, lives in New York City. She is a middling practitioner of several fiber arts, as well as a lover of music, travel, the written word, and engaging with other bibliophiles. 

Alex Zalben is a host and producer of the podcast Comic Book Club, which has been profiled twice in the New York Times. He's written about entertainment for MTV News, TV Guide, and more, and is the author of an all-ages comic book series for Marvel, "Thor and the Warriors Four."