Nicola Yoon is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything, Everything, both of which have been turned into major motion pictures. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist David Yoon, and their daughter. She’s also a hopeless romantic who firmly believes that you can fall in love in an instant and that it can last forever.
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Jennifer Lynn Barnes is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty acclaimed young adult novels, including The Inheritance Games trilogy, Little White Lies, Deadly Little Scandals, The Lovely and the Lost, and The Naturals series. Jen is also a Fulbright Scholar with advanced degrees in psychology, psychiatry, and cognitive science. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2012 and was a professor of psychology and professional writing at the University of Oklahoma for many years. She invites you to her online at www.jenniferlynnbarnes.com or follow her on Twitter @jenlynnbarnes.
Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books for very young children. His best-known work, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has been translated into 70 languages and sold over 55 million copies. Carle illustrated more than seventy books, many best sellers, most of which he also wrote, and more than 170 million copies of his books have sold around the world. In 2003, Carle received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) for lifetime achievement in children’s literature. In 2002, Eric and his wife, Barbara, cofounded The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (www.carlemuseum.org) in Amherst, Massachusetts, a 40,000-square-foot space dedicated to the celebration of picture books and picture book illustrations from around the world, underscoring the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of picture books and their art form. Eric Carle passed away in May 2021 at the age of 91. His work remains an important influence on artists and illustrators at work today. www.eric-carle.com
David Wengrow is a professor of comparative archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and has been a visiting professor at New York University. He is the author of three books, including What Makes Civilization?. Wengrow conducts archaeological fieldwork in various parts of Africa and the Middle East.
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is the bestselling author of 12 Rules for Life, which has sold more than five million copies worldwide. After working for decades as a clinical psychologist and a professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto, Peterson has become one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals. His YouTube videos and podcasts have gathered a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions, while his book tour reached more than 250,000 people in major cities around the globe. With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than one hundred scientific papers, and his 1999 book Maps of Meaning revolutionized the psychology of religion. He lives in Toronto, Ontario with his family.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. His class, Think Again: How to Reason and Argue, is one of the most popular courses available online via the global platform Coursera. His books include Morality Without God? and Moral Skepticisms.
Karen M. McManus is a #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of young adult thrillers. Her books include the One of Us Is Lying series, which has been turned into a television show on Netflix, as well as the standalone novels Two Can Keep a Secret, The Cousins, You’ll Be the Death of Me, and Nothing More to Tell. Karen’s critically acclaimed, award-winning work has been translated into more than forty-two languages.
Jennifer Niven is the #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of All the Bright Places, Holding Up the Universe and Breathless, in addition to several novels for adults. Her books have been translated into over 75 languages and won literary awards around the world. When she isn’t working on multiple book and TV projects, Jennifer also oversees Germ, a literary web magazine for high school age and beyond. She divides her time between coastal Georgia and Paris with her husband and literary cats.
Madeleine L’Engle lived in New York and wrote over 60 books for children, including A WRINKLE IN TIME, the first in her Time Quintet series and winner of the highly prestigious Newbury Medal. She died in 2007, aged 88.
E. B. White (Author)
E. B. White was born in New York in 1899 and died in 1985. He kept animals on his farm in Maine and some of these creatures crept into his books, such as STUART LITTLE which was recently made into a blockbusting film. He received many awards including the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 1970, an award given every five years to authors who have ‘made a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children’.
Garth Williams (Illustrator)
Garth Williams was born in 1912 and became one of American’s best-loved illustrators.
His magical drawings have brought to life many memorable children’s book characters, including Fern, Wilbur, and Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web and the adventurous little mouse, Stuart Little.
Garth Williams died in 1996, at the age of 84.
