Interview Tuesdays

Melissa Taylor is a mom of two girls, an education blogger & writer, a children’s book expert, a former award-winning bilingual teacher with an M.A. in Education, a former literacy trainer for teachers, and a passionate advocate for literacy, representation in children’s literature, and high-quality education. She has taught ESL, bilingual kindergarten, bilingual 4/5, 4th, and 5th grades, and coached teachers in K-12 grades. In...

Claudia Rueda is a Colombian author and a New York Times Best Seller illustrator of over thirty picture books. Rueda's books have been published in the United States, Mexico, and Spain and have been translated into seventeen different languages. She’s a 2016 Hans Christian Andersen and Astrid Lindgren Awards nominee. Claudia went to Law and Art school and worked as a political cartoonist in Colombia. She then studied Children’s...

Olivia Abtahi is a proud Iranian Argentinian American. Her debut novel, Perfectly Parvin, was published in 2021, receiving the SCBWI Golden Kite Honor, YALSA Odyssey Honor, and numerous starred reviews. Her sophomore novel, Azar on Fire, was published in August 2022 and is a SLJ pick. Olivia's third novel, Twin Flames, is a New Visions Award winner and published in August 2024. The Interpreter is her first picture book, receivi...

Rebecca K. Morrison was born in Iran, immigrated to the United States in her teens, and now lives in the Washington, DC, area. In 2020, after practicing law for over two decades, Rebecca decided to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Newsweek, The Independent and HuffPost, among others. Her debut novel, The Blue Dress, based on her childhood as an Irani...

Amy Seto Forrester (she/her) is passionate about diverse, engaging books for developing readers. She draws on a decade of experience as a children’s librarian, a background in the performing arts, and a lifelong love of puzzles, mazes, and all forms of interactive learning. Amy served on the 2016 Geisel Award Committee. She has written pieces for Booklist, School Library Journal, and Calling Caldecott. She currently reviews for Kir...

Nicholas Manning is an educator and writer passionate about nurturing emotional growth through literature. Drawing on twelve years of teaching middle school language arts and experience illustrating children's books, he now authors Angel Among Us. Inspired by his mother's passing and written for his twin sons, this book serves as a gentle, visually engaging resource to help children process loss and grief. Nicholas lives in...

Dan Gemeinhart lives in a small town smack dab in the middle of Washington state with his wife and three young daughters. He was lucky and grateful to be a teacher-librarian in an elementary school for thirteen years, where he got to share awesome books with awesome kids. He loves camping, cooking and traveling. He also plays guitar (badly) and reads (constantly). His house is always a mess. He is really pretty darn happy. 

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Kathy Kacer is a multiple award-winning author whose books have sold in over twenty countries and have been translated into many languages. Her novels are stories of hope, courage, and humanity in the face of overwhelming adversity.

These days, in addition to writing, she speaks to young people in schools and libraries around the world, about the importance of understanding the Holocaust and keeping its memory alive. She also speaks...

Donna Galanti wanted to be a writer ever since she attended an English school, housed in a magical castle, where her wild imagination was held back only by her itchy uniform (bowler hat and tie included!).

She is the author of middle-grade books with the Unicorn Island series, Joshua and the Lightning Road series, and Loon Cove Summer. She’s also the author of the paranormal suspense Element Trilogy for adults. She has lived in fun ...

Mari Mancusi is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty sci-fi/fantasy books for kids, teens and adults and an Emmy award winning former TV news producer. Her series have been selected for major state reading lists as well as the Scholastic Book Fairs and have been honored by the American Library Association as “Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers." In addition to writing, Mari loves to travel, watch hor...

Kathy Akopov Guillory grew up in the USSR and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was nine years old. She struggled to make friends at a new school in an entirely new country and leaned on her grandma, Baba Emma, for support, which inspired her book The Adventures of Belle Bear. By day, she is a marketing consultant who lives in Maine with her husband, Chris; daughters, Emma and Eleanor; and their two dogs, Hal...

Shugri Salh is the author of the memoir The Last Nomad (Algonquin, 2021) and a supporting actor in the Apple TV+ “Little America” episode set in an immigrant Somali community.She was born in the desert of Somalia in 1974 and spent her early years living with her grandmother in the desert as a nomad. In 1992, after the civil war broke out in her home country, she emigrated to North America. She attended nursing school at Pacific Uni...

Traci Sorell is a best-selling author of inclusive, award-winning historical and contemporary fiction and nonfiction in a variety of formats for young people. 

She is a two-time Sibert Medal and Orbis Pictus honoree and award-winning audiobook narrator and producer. Eight of her books have received awards from the American Indian Library Association. Other accolades include Charlotte Huck Honor Award, Septima Clark Women in Literatu...

Rebecca E. F. Barone is an engineer who has worked on a diverse array of projects: injury analysis for the National Football League, knee mechanics during car crashes, development of gait biometrics, and engine calibration of hybrid cars. Realizing her love for books in addition to numbers, she now describes the world with words rather than equations. Her first book, Race to the Bottom of the Earth: Surviving Antarctica, is now ava...

Lance Rubin is the NY Times best-selling author of young adult and middle grade novels, including Denton Little’s Deathdate, Crying Laughing, and The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek (co-written with Rhett and Link of Good Mythical Morning). He was an ABA Indies Introduce pick for Denton Little’s Deathdate, which was the ILA YA book of the year in 2016.  His books have also been Junior Library Guild selections, Amazon Books of the Month,...

Jed Alexander is the author and illustrator of The Fairy-Tale Color Collection, a series of wordless retellings of classic fairytales for children—including Red and Gold, which have garnered starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly and praise from the New York Times. He has also written and illustrated for SpongeBob Comics and Cricket magazine. Jed lives in California with his wife, best friend, and favorite person...