Authors & Illustrators

Violeta Dabija lives in Moldova, a small Eastern European country. She has a strong traditional art background, a BA degree in Fine Arts/Graphic Design and 10 years of experience as a children’s book illustrator. She works in both traditional and digital media and often mixes them to produce delicate and atmospheric illustrations with a traditional…

Laura Purdie Salas is the author of more than 135 books for kids, including If You Were the Moon, Lion of the Sky, theCan Be… series, and Bookspeak! Poems about Books. Poetry and rhyming nonfiction books are her favorite things to write. Laura loves to do author visits, writing workshops, and teacher inservices. Read more…

Barry Gott lives in Ohio and has illustrated many children’s books, including all of the Dino-Sports and Dino-Holidays books.  

Lisa Wheeler is the award-winning author of the Dino-Sports and Dino-Holidays books. When she isn’t running around the country visiting schools, standing at podiums, and eating airport snacks, she resides in Michigan.  

Shafaq Khan is a middle grade author, lawyer, and mom. Born to Pakistani parents, Shafaq grew up in a small port city along the Persian Gulf called Jubail Industrial City; a city that barely makes it on most maps but would shape her worldview and forever cement her identity as a third culture kid. It…

Jennifer Mason-Black is the author of Devil and the Bluebird (Abrams 2016), which received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness, and was included in the Locus Recommended Reading List 2016. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, and The Sun, among others. She is a member…

Emma K. Ohland (she/they) is an author who has been telling stories since before she knew how to write them down. She grew up in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana, but her imagination often carried her away to other worlds. She graduated from Purdue University with a BA in English literature. Her first…

Lyn Miller-Lachmann is an author, educator, and editor. Her novels include Torch, winner of the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature, Gringolandia, Rogue, Moonwalking, and Eyes Open. She earned a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Masters in Fine Arts in Writing for…

Dr. Rebecca E. Hirsch is an award- winning children’s author with a PhD in plant biology. Her picture books include Plants Can’t Sit Still and Night Creatures: Animals That Swoop, Crawl, and Creep while You Sleep. She lives with her husband and three children in State College, Pennsylvania. You can visit her online at rebeccahirsch.com.

Il Sung Na was born in Seoul, South Korea. In 2001, he moved to London to pursue a BFA in illustration and animation at Kingston University, where he discovered a passion for children’s books. He completed his MFA in illustration practice at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in 2015. Il Sung has illustrated several…

Sandra Nickel is a writer of nonfiction picture books for children. Her work includes The Stuff Between Stars, Nacho’s Nachos, and Breaking Through the Clouds. She is the winner of a Christopher Award and holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. When at home in Switzerland,…

Ana Zurita lives in Spain. She was born by the sea in Valencia, where she completed her studies in fine arts. She is a big fan of the beach in winter, the color yellow, the smell of old books, and heavy blankets. She has illustrated many picture books.

Cassie Silva is an author of multiple children’s books and a social worker of Portuguese heritage living in Vancouver, Canada. Cassie loves volunteering, books, cats, and ice cream.

Chris Monroe is an award-winning author, illustrator and cartoonist. Her picture books include Sneaky Sheep, Bug On a Bike and the Monkey With a Tool Belt series, which inspired the Netflix show Chico Bon Bon: Monkey with a Tool Belt. Chris is also the author and illustrator of the comic strip Violet Days, which has…

Rebecca Mönch prefers to paint with and for children. After studying art history and art education, she now works in a museum and tries to get visitors excited about art and history. She is also finally pursuing her passion for inventing and illustrating stories. She loves dogs, especially hers, and of course her family, with…

Maria Vohn, born in Aachen in 1962, studied painting at the ‘Academie voor Toegepaste Kunsten’ in Maastricht/Netherlands. At the RWTH Aachen, she studied nudes and drawing under Prof Schönwald, as well as intensive anatomical studies in pathology. She has taken part in many exhibitions in the Aachen area and Bologna/Italy. Maria Vohn lives and works…

Anna Keller Keith was born in the Ruhr area and spent her childhood between football pitches, tower blocks and the public library. She studied Comparative Literature and German-French Studies in Bochum, Bonn and Paris, worked as an editor and conducted research in media education. Today, Anna Keller lives in Cologne, where she writes, teaches creative…

Clara Thomasset is a Belgian author and illustrator who only recently graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. She specialises in children’s books, but also enjoys writing stories and poems for adults in her art collective Koven. Inspired by the seemingly insignificant things in life, such as daydreaming, her cats and walks…

Jörg Bernardy is a philosopher and author. He writes journalistic texts (for DIE ZEIT, among others) and books for children, young people and adults. He philosophises with children in the “Maus zum Hören”, in the podcast at MausLive (WDR) and for the ‘Gedankenflieger’. He is a member of the jury for the LUCHS Children’s Book…

Heidemarie Brosche, born in 1955 in Neuburg/Danube, was a secondary school teacher and has been successfully writing children’s, youth and non-fiction books for a good 30 years. She often writes for children and young people who don’t like reading. In 2020, she was awarded the Volkacher Taler by the German Academy for Children’s and Youth…