2019 Authors & Workshops

Elizabeth
Acevedo

Elizabeth Acevedo loves passion fruit juice and fried cheese. She became a poet & writer after a failed career as a teen rap sensation. If she were not a writer she would be a professional sleeper or Food Network TV shouter-atter.
 
Writing Workshop
Clapbacks and Calligraphy: A generative poetry workshop that focuses on personal experience and exploring the things that have been left unsaid. Students will brainstorm, write, and read out loud their own poems in this 45 minutes workshop.

Featured Books
The Poet X (HS)

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Phil Bidner

I've been to the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the NBA Finals.
When I taught middle school in the New York City Public Schools, Dave Matthews, The Fugees, Blues Traveler, and the Barenaked Ladies all visited my classroom.
I've traveled to 48 of the 50 states.
My favorite books are the ones I read out loud to my students.
I have a rescue pitbull named Katniss. We call her Kat, so yeah, I have a dog named Kat.
 
Writing Workshop
Creating and developing characters; Giving your characters voice.
 
Featured Books
The Rip & Red Series: A Whole New Ballgame (MS),
Rookie of the Year (MS),
Tournament of Champions (MS), Most Valuable Players (MS)

Dan Gemeinhart

Howdy! Here's some stuff about me: I once chased off the pyramids in Egypt by guys with machine guns. I secretly love the 80's sitcom GOLDEN GIRLS. I'd be perfectly happy if I ate nothing but cheese for the rest of my life. I sing in the shower, generally at the top of my lungs. I can recite the entire movie of DUMB & DUMBER, start to finish. I've never once lost a thumb-wrestling match. 
 
Writing Workshop
"Idea Factory: How to Get and Grow Awesome Ideas"
The most common question authors get is, "where do you get your ideas?" In this workshop, let's find out! You'll learn tips, trick and strategies for generating tons of awesome ideas from your own brain, life and heart...as well as learning some first-step strategies on how to turn those ideas into stories. Ready, set, create!"
 
Featured Books
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise (MS)

Cynthia Hand

From as far back as I can remember, I loved books and reading, and wrote my first short story (about a fairy being born in a tulip) when I was around six years old—pretty much as soon as I could write. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Widdison, told me that I'd be an author some day, and I believed her. I kept writing stories all through grade school, most of them wildly fantastical musings on supernatural beings or creatures, none of which ever won the annual short story competition. I learned early on that if you wanted to win the writing contest, you should not write about a group of unicorns fighting to take over an island from an alien invasion. I kept writing about unicorns, anyway.

In middle school and high school, my friends and I formed a writing group that wrote fan fiction about our favorite novels and movies. We wrote about Elfquest, Vampire Hunter D, X-Men, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, Anne McCafferty's Pern series, Star Wars, and SeaQuest—anyone remember SeaQuest? Early on I was appointed the "editor" of our work, meaning that I collected it all, typed it, and edited it. I loved and possibly abused my power with the red pen. 

Writing Workshop
"How Publishing Is Like The Hunger Games" with a lot of funny stories and photos about everything from cover design to your rejection pile.

Featured Books
The How and The Why (HS) - coming soon; My Plain Jane and My Lady Jane (MS/HS); The Afterlife of Holly Chase (MS/HS); The Last Time We Say Goodbye (HS); The Unearthly series (MS/HS)

Lisa Mcmann

One time in 8th grade Lisa McMann slipped and fell down a flight of stairs at school...with her violin. Luckily only a few hundred people saw her. She is left-handed, but isn't sure if that contributed to the fall. She likes animals, Pokemon Go, and watching reality TV shows like Survivor. Lisa's husband is a writer and musician who has fallen into a bathtub. Her son is an artist who has also fallen into a bathtub (not the same one). Her daughter is an actor who has fallen down the stairs (with a smoothie). It's amazing the family has survived this long.
 
Writing Workshop
Playprots and Scatterclips: A Creative Guide to Magical Fantasy World Building.
 
Featured Books
The Unwanteds Quests series (MS)
The Unwanteds series (MS)
Going Wild trilogy (MS)

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Alexander gordon smith

Alexander Gordon Smith, 38, is best known as the author of the Escape From Furnace Series, made up of Lockdown, Solitary, Death Sentence, Fugitives and Execution. He is is also the author of The Fury, and, with his eleven-year-old brother Jamie, The Inventors books. His new series, The Devil’s Engine, is out now in the US, starting with Hellraisers and continuing with Hellfighters.
He is the author of two creative writing handbooks, Inspired Creative Writing and Writing Bestselling Children’s Books, a number of screenplays that are currently in development, several non-fiction books and hundreds of short stories and articles.
Gordon is the founder of Egg Box Publishing, an independent, non-profit imprint designed to publish and promote talented new writers and poets, and is the co-owner of Fear Driven Films, a production company filming its first feature.
He actively encourages people of all ages to read and write, and runs creative writing talks and workshops across the world. In 2009 he was named by the Courvoisier Future 500 as one of the most promising young entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom.
He is called Gordon, rather than Alexander, because his Mum and Dad liked the name Gordon but didn’t want his initials to spell GAS, so called him by his middle name!
 
Writing Workshop
TBA
 
Featured Books
The Inventors,
Escape from the Furnace,
The Fury,
The Devil's Engine

Jeff Zentner

Jeff Zentner once owned a pet sloth. Their relationship ended when he gave it a bath. It’s a long story. Jeff loves smelling scented candles and pictures of raccoons in tuxedos and hates man’s inhumanity to man and wasps. He writes books.
 
Writing Workshop
Giving Your Characters a Voice

In this workshop I’m going to teach you how to write dialogue that moves with energy and vigor to bring your characters to life and keep readers turning pages. In our time together, I’ll also teach you how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls of bad dialogue.
 
Featured Books
Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee (MS/HS)

Laurie Halse
​Anderson

 Laurie Halse Anderson is on a one-woman campaign to make the world realize how awesome teenagers are, and to write books that they will actually read for fun. If this author-thing doesn't work out, she'll go back to working on a dairy farm. She is quite skilled with a manure shovel.
 
Writing Workshop
How to Write Poetry That Will Alarm and Entertain Your Friends
 
Featured Books
SHOUT! (HS) - coming March 2019
Speak (HS)
Chains (MS)

Nicole Castroman

Nicole loves BBC period pieces, epic karaoke road trips with her family and spending time at the beach.
 
Writing Workshop
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” It’s the same with dialogue. Not all conversations are great, but in this class we’ll learn techniques on how to change that and make the most out of each and every exchange.
 
Featured Books
Blackhearts (MS/HS);
​Blacksouls (MS/HS)

Maurene Goo

Maurene Goo grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles surrounded by piles of books and floral wallpaper. Once, her pants fell off in front of a bunch of boys and then she wrote a book inspired by it. She writes books for teens with many cringey moments like these and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and cat, Maeby.
 
Writing Workshop
Writing With Voice...or How to Make Your Story Way More Interesting
 
Featured Books
I Believe in a Thing Called Love (MS/HS),
​The Way You Make Me Feel (MS/HS)

Brendan Kiely

Brendan Kiely is the kind of fool who puked on his 8th grade crush not once, but twice, and purposely flunked math class so he wouldn't get the scholarship (and therefore admittance) to the private high school his parents wanted him to attend. He loves cats, but they send him into ludicrously long sneezing fits.
 
Writing Workshop
Writing about Rebellion and Social Justice 
 
Featured Books
​Tradition (HS)

Matthew Kirby

Matthew J. Kirby has been writing stories since he was in the 3rd grade. He used to play the piano, but at the age of 14, he quit (in the middle of a recital performance). He also used to paint, but the frustrations of being colorblind made it quite difficult (he does still draw, though). At one point, he wanted to be a paleontologist, and dreamed about running away to live in the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum, which still sounds like it would be pretty cool. He is now a writer and school psychologist, which means he is doing something he dreamed about doing as a kid, and also doing something he did not dream about doing, but loves doing, just the same.
 
Writing Workshop
Writing Through the Messy Middle

Featured Books
Icefall (MS)
The Clockwork Three (MS)

Alex London

Alex London's greatest claim to fame is not that he's the author of over 25 books for children, teens, and adults. And it's not that, at 15 years old, he was the Delaware state Jr Skeet Shooting Champion for two weeks, it's that, at 16 years old, he was profiled in the German teen girl's magazine Mädchen, and for months got German teen girl fan letters, which his husband will not let him throw away.

Writing Workshop
Building Worlds with Words: making worlds for your story, whether it's fantasy, sci-fi, or totally realistic, that not only feel real, but are like characters themselves.
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Featured Books
Black Wings Beating (MS/HS)

Aisha SAeed

Aisha Saeed is a writer of books, a doodler, a wrangler of three little boys, and a drinker of chai. Lots and lots of chai.
 
Writing Workshop
Digging into characters and how to deepen them.
 
Featured Books
Amal Unbound (MS/HS)

Margaret Stohl

I know more about cats than I do humans. A stray hair in a sink can make me barf if I look at it long enough. I can never say no to coffee. Sometimes I get up and eat a popsicle every hour of the night. My favorite thing in life is a whiteboard. On bad days I sing myself a song called "Everything is Red" and those are also all the lyrics. If you ask me I'll sing it for you.

​Writing Workshop
"You Literally Can't Suck at *Everything So Why Not Suck Your Way to Publication?"(*Unless you happen to be a pseudopod or a cephalopod, ie creatures made of entirely of suction cups, in which case you wouldn't suck at sucking, so I rest my case.)

This is a lesson in how learning to write is shorthand for learning to get your inner hater to shut up enough so you can hear your own voice. We will talk about the basics of a 3 act structure, character building, universe detail, rising action - but all within the context of how the writer's strengths and weaknesses are usually the same thing, and how our self-perceived "flaws" are key to finding and articulating a unique POV.

Featured Books
Beautiful Creatures (YA)
Black Widow books (YA)
Icons books (YA)
Royce Rolls (YA)

Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Susan Campbell Bartoletti is an American writer of children's literature whose work includes Kids on Strike! and Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow. She was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but eventually the family ended up in a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania

Writing Workshop
Workshop for Muses: This is a fun, muse-friendly, generative writing workshop OR I can "The Facts & Fictions of Writing Nonfiction". Which would you prefer?
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Featured Books
1968: A Year of Rebellion, Revolution, & Change (MS/HS); The Boy Who Dared (MS/HS), Hitler Youth (MS/HS), They Called Themselves the KKK (MS/HS), Terrible Typhoid Mary (MS/HS);

Kami Garcia

I know how to escape from a pair of handcuffs. My dogs, Spike and Oz, are named after characters from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I can’t ride a bike.
 
Writing Workshop
TBD
 
Featured Books
Beautiful Creatures (MS/HS), The Lovely Reckless (HS), Broken Beautiful Hearts (HS), Teen Titans: Raven (MS/HS)

Margaret Peterson Haddix

Things I was embarrassed by as a kid:
1. Breaking my foot because my younger brother, sister, and I were goofing off pretending that yardsticks were crutches--and then I slipped and fell and had to use crutches for real while my foot healed. When people asked, "How'd you break your foot, I usually just said, "Oh, I was leaning on something..."
2. Having my sixth grade teacher confiscate the "book" I'd written and given to my best friend to read. She made the mistake of reading it in class when she was supposed to be doing schoolwork, and so the teacher took it and read it. His only comment: "I thought you were a better speller than that."
3. Telling anyone that I was dreaming of becoming an author. I had never met an author, and it didn't seem like something that real people got to do--definitely not something that I could do! Obviously I was wrong about that!

Writing Workshop
Plot Twists: How to keep your readers guessing.
 
Featured Books
The Summer of Broken Things (MS/HS);
The Children of Exile series (MS);
The Strangers (MS)

Lindsey Leavitt

Lindsey Leavitt was born with crooked pinkies, which sometimes makes hitting the caps lock key awkward. NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTS. She has a large blended family of 6 kids, who all keep her from writing with needs like food and drives-to-school/soccer/friends. In high school, she won a Saved-by-Bell trivia contest and could probably still school you on all things Zack Morris today. She writes all her books and author bios from a cheetah-print recliner in a small Utah town.
 
Writing Workshop
 Characters: How to invent a person who feels more real than that aunt with the weird perm you've only met twice
 
Featured Books
The Pages Between Us (MS),
Princess For Hire (MS), 
Sean Griswold's Head (HS)

L.L. Mckinney

Leatrice "Elle" McKinney, writing as L.L. McKinney, is a poet and active member of the kidlit community. She’s an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing, and the creator of the hashtag #WhatWoCWritersHear. She’s spent time in the slush by serving as a reader for agents and participating as a judge in various online writing contests.

Elle's also a gamer, Blerd, and adamant Hei Hei stan, living in Kansas, surrounded by more nieces and nephews than she knows what to do with. Aside from rockin' the Favorite Aunt thing, she spends her free time plagued by her cat--Sir Chester Fluffmire Boopsnoot Purrington Wigglebottom Flooferson III, esquire, Baron o'Butterscotch or #SirChester for short--or defending the realm from the enemies of Azeroth. FOR THE HORDE!

​Writing Workshop
Finding Your Voice

Featured Books
A Blade So Black (HS)
Dream So Dark (HS)

Adam Silvera

Adam Silvera changes his Hogwarts House a lot, but currently identifies as a Ravenclaw even though he went to summer school three years in a row. He is tall for absolutely no reason.
 
Writing Workshop
Adam will talk about the advantages of writing from other characters' perspectives, plus how to feel a closeness to characters who don't have a POV in the novel.
 
Featured Books
They Both Die At The End (HS),
What If It's Us (HS),
History Is All You Left Me (HS),
More Happy Than Not (HS)

Ibi Zoboi

Ibi Zoboi was born in Haiti and immigrated to New York with her mother when she was four years-old. Everything about her new home was both strange and magical. This is why she loves reading and writing science-fiction, fantasy, and mythology. And she loves love stories, too! Ibi wears lots of bright colors and is a huge fan of mangos, avocados, dry humor, long-winded storytellers, and modest skirts. She also smiles, laughs, and cries often—sometimes all at once. She lives in Brooklyn with her three children, her husband the art teacher, and three pet turtles named Lucky, Jade, and Leo. It’s a messy house.
 
Writing Workshop
TBA
 
Featured Books
Pride (HS), Black Enough (HS)