2019 Participating Authors

Participating Authors | Housing and Travel | Programs and Special Events

Check back often as we finalize author participation at the Symposium!  

Opening Session

Sandhya Menon is the New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi, Of Curses and Kisses, and many other novels that also feature lots of kissing, girl power, and swoony boys. Her books have been included in several cool places, including the Today show, Teen Vogue, NPR, BuzzFeed, and Seventeen. A full-time dog servant and part-time writer, she makes her home in the foggy mountains of Colorado. 

Meredith Russo is a trans woman from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she currently lives. She started living as her true self in 2013 and never looked back. She is the author of IF I WAS YOUR GIRL and BIRTHDAY. Find Meredith on Twitter @Mer_Squared.

Kekla Magoon is the author of twelve books for middle-grade and young adult readers. Among the honors she has received are an NAACP Image Award, the John Steptoe New Talent Award, two Coretta Scott King Honors, The Walter Award Honor, the In the Margins Award, and most recently, the 2019 Boston Globe Horn Book Award.     

Lauren Myracle Bestselling young adult author Lauren Myracle has written many beloved books about coming of age as a girl in contemporary society. For the first time, she turns her frank and insightful prose to a boy and his philosophical, moral, emotional, and sexual maturing. In Swag Boy (Spring 2020), Paul Walden is an unforgettable character—funny, curious, loyal, self-critical—but what makes this novel really stand out is his relationship with his mother, Callie. It's a rare close mother-son relationship in young adult literature that speaks to our evolving definition of masculinity. Lauren Myracle's books have sold more than three million copies and she is a pioneer of this golden age of young adult literature.

Closing Session

Renée Ahdieh is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her spare time, she likes to dance salsa and collect shoes. She is passionate about all kinds of curry, rescue dogs, and college basketball. The first few years of her life were spent in a high-rise in South Korea; consequently, Renée enjoys having her head in the clouds. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband and their tiny overlord of a dog. She is the author of Flame in the Mist and Smoke in the Sun as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling The Wrath and the Dawn and its sequel, The Rose and the Dagger.

Marie Lu is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Legend series, The Young Elites trilogy, Batman: Nightwalker, and the Warcross series. She graduated from the University of Southern California and jumped into the video game industry, where she worked as an artist. A full-time writer, she spends her spare hours reading, drawing, playing games, and getting stuck in traffic. She lives in the traffic-jam capital, Los Angeles, with her illustrator/author husband, Primo Gallanosa, their Pembroke Welsh corgi, and their Chihuahua-monster mix.

Shaun David Hutchinson is the author of numerous books for young adults, including The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried, The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza, At the Edge of the Universe, and We Are the Ants. He also edited the anthologies Violent Ends and Feral Youth and wrote the memoir Brave Face, which chronicles his struggles with depression and coming out during his teenage years. He lives in Seattle, where he enjoys drinking coffee, yelling at the TV, and eating cake. Visit him at ShaunDavidHutchinson.com or on Twitter @ShaunieDarko.

Veronica Roth is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent Series (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Four: A Divergent Collection) and the Carve the Mark series (Carve the Mark, The Fates Divide). Her short stories and essays have appeared in the anthologies Summer Days and Summer Nights, Shards and Ashes, and Three Sides of a Heart. The Divergent Series was developed into three major motion pictures. Veronica grew up outside of Chicago and graduated from Northwestern University. She now lives in Chicago proper with her husband and dog and writes full-time.

Author Luncheon (ticketed event)

Mitali Perkins has written many award-winning books for young readers, including her most recent YA novel, Forward Me Back to You, which received three starred reviews. Her novel, You Bring the Distant Near, was a Walter Honor Book and a National Book Award Nominee, won the South Asia Book Award, and received six starred reviews, in addition to other accolades. Mitali was born in Kolkata, India, and has lived in Bangladesh, England, Thailand, Mexico, Cameroon, and Ghana. She currently resides in Northern California.

Tiffany D. Jackson is the critically acclaimed author of YA novels including the NAACP Image Award-nominated ALLEGEDLY and MONDAY’S NOT COMING, a Walter Dean Myers Honored Book and Coretta Scott King New Talent Award winner. She received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University, her master of arts in media studies from the New School, and has over a decade in TV/Film experience. The Brooklyn native is a lover of naps, cookie dough, and beaches, currently residing in the borough she loves, most likely multitasking. Her most recent novel, LET ME HEAR A RHYME (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books) was published in May 2019.

Jennifer Mathieu is the author of Devoted, Afterward, The Truth About Alice, the winner of the Children's Choice Teen Debut Author Award, and most recently, The Liars of Mariposa Island. Her 2017 novel Moxie is being developed into a film directed by Amy Poehler for Netflix. Jennifer teaches high school English in Texas, where she lives in the Houston area with her husband and son.

Vince Vawter was reared in Memphis and spent forty years in the newspaper business as a writer, editor, and publisher. He is the author of PAPERBOY, winner of a 2014 Newbery Honor. Vince has also authored COPYBOY.  He and his wife live on a small farm near Knoxville.

Morris Program

Hafsah Faizal is an American Muslim and brand designer. She’s the founder of IceyDesigns, where she creates websites for authors and beauteous goodies for everyone else. When she’s not writing, she can be found dreaming up her next design, deciding between Assassin’s Creed and Skyrim, or traversing the world. Born in Florida and raised in California, she now resides in Texas with her family and a library of books waiting to be devoured. Her debut novel We Hunt The Flame has received four starred reviews.

Echo Brown is a writer, performer, and playwright from Cleveland, Ohio. She is best known for her one-woman show Black Virgins Are Not For Hipsters, which Alice Walker praised: "Not since early Whoopi Goldberg have I been so moved by a performer's narrative." A Dartmouth alumna and the first female college graduate in her family, she is currently based in Paris, France. Echo Black Girl Unlimited is her debut novel.

Zack Smedley is a chemical engineer who recently graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. As a member of the LGBT community, his goal is to give a voice to queer young adults, through gritty, morally complex narratives. Deposing Nathan is Zack’s debut novel.

Kristina Forest was born and raised in Lawnside, New Jersey, a teeny tiny town that was also the first self-governing African American community north of the Mason-Dixon line. She started dancing when she was seven and her dream job was to be a backup dancer for Michael Jackson. By the time she was seventeen, she’d realized she loved writing more than dancing, so she enrolled at Rowan University and majored in Writing Arts, and then earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the New School. Kristina work in children’s book publishing, and lives in Brooklyn, New York with two huge bookshelves. I Wanna Be Where You Are is her first novel.

S.K. Ali is a teacher based in Toronto whose writing on Muslim culture and life has appeared in the Toronto Star. Her family of Muslim scholars is consistently listed in the The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, and her insight into Muslim culture is both personal and far-reaching. A mother of a teenage daughter herself, S.K. Ali’s debut YA novel is a beautiful and nuanced story about a young woman exploring her identity through friendship, family, and faith.

Seeking Justice through Nonfiction

Zetta Elliott is an award-winning author, scholar, and activist. Born in Canada, she moved to the US in 1994 to pursue her PhD in American Studies at NYU. She taught Black Studies at the college level for close to a decade and has worked with urban youth for thirty years. Her poetry has been published in New Daughters of Africa; We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices; the Cave Canem anthology The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South; Check the Rhyme: an Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees; and Coloring Book: an Eclectic Anthology of Fiction and Poetry by Multicultural Writers. She is the author of over thirty books for young readers and currently lives in West Philadelphia. Visit zettaelliott.com to learn more.

Deborah Wiles is the author of the picture book Freedom Summer and the novels: Love, Ruby Lavender; The Aurora County All-Stars; and Each Little Bird That Sings, a National Book Award finalist, and A Long Line of Cakes. She is also the author of the documentary novels Countdown and Revolution, a National Book Award Finalist, and Anthem. Deborah lives in Atlanta, Georgia. You can visit her on the web at deborahwiles.com.

Lawrence Goldstone has written more than a dozen books for adults, including three on Constitutional Law. With Unpunished Murder was his first book on that subject for young readers, and his second book for young people, Stolen Justice, . He lives in Sagaponack, New York, with his wife, medieval and Renaissance historian Nancy Goldstone.

Susan Kuklin is the award-winning author and photographer of more than thirty books for children and young adults that address social issues and culture, including No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row; Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, a Stonewall Honor Book; and We Are Here to Stay: Voices of Undocumented Young Adults. Her photographs have appeared in documentary films and in Time magazine, Newsweek, and the New York Times. Susan Kuklin lives in New York City.

LGBTQIA+ in YA: Representing All Teens

Ryan La Sala grew up in Connecticut, but only physically. Mentally, he spent most of his childhood in the worlds of Sailor Moon and Xena: Warrior Princess, which perhaps explains all the twirling. He studied Anthropology and Neuroscience at Northeastern University before becoming a project manager specialized in digital tools. He technically lives in New York City, but has actually transcended material reality and only takes up a human shell for special occasions, like brunch, and to watch anime (which is banned on the astral plane). Reverie is Ryan’s debut novel. You can visit him at ryanlasala.com.

Kacen Callender's debut novel, Hurricane Child, was the winner of the 2019 Stonewall Book Award and the 2019 Lambda Literary Award, as well as a Kirkus Best Book of 2018. Born and raised in St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, they enjoy playing video games and watching anime and reality TV shows in their free time. Kacen currently lives and writes in Philadelphia.

Gabby Rivera is a Bronx-born queer Latinx babe on a mission to create the wildest, most fun stories ever. She's the first Latina to write for Marvel comics, penning the solo series AMERICA about America Chavez, a portal-punching queer Latina powerhouse. In 2017, Gabby was named one of the top comic creators by the SyFy network, and one of NBC's #Pride30 Innovators. Gabby now makes magic on both coasts, currently residing in California. She writes for all the sweet baby queers and her mom.

Using Latinx Literature Past and Present to Cultivate, Activate, and Amplify Teen Voices

NoNieqa Ramos wrote the THE DISTURBED GIRL’S DICTIONARY, a 2018 New York Public Library Best Book for Teens, a 2019 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, and a 2019 In the Margins Award Top Ten pick. THE TRUTH IS will be released September 3rd, 2019! She is a proud member of the Latinx collective Las Musas and Soaring 20's picture book 2020 debuts.

Alexandra Villasante, author of The Grief Keeper 

Michelle Ruiz Keil is a Latinx novelist and playwright. She teaches writing and curates All Kinds of Fur: A Fairytale Reading Series and Salon in Portland, Oregon. She has been a fellow at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and Lit Camp and is a member of Las Musas, a collective of Latinx kidlit authors. Her published short fiction can be found on Cosmonauts Avenue and in the forthcoming anthology Color outside the Lines. All of Us with Wings is her first novel.

Tehlor Mejia, author of We Set the Dark on Fire;

Claribel Ortega, author of Ghost Squad

Mental Health in YA Lit and Serving Teen Readers: What's There & What's Not

Hannah Bae worked her butt off for 10 years as a journalist before she decided to take a plunge, quit her full-time job at CNN, and pursue her creative passions. After leaving the world of breaking news, she got married, started a Korean food writing and illustration project with her husband, brought home her dream dog Ramona, and launched a freelance career writing about Korean-American identity, health, family and, of course, Korean cuisine. Check out her work at @eatdrinkdraw on Instagram and at hannahbae.com.

Christine Heppermann is the author of two books for young adults, POISONED APPLES: POEMS FOR YOU MY PRETTY and ASK ME HOW I GOT HERE, both of which were ALA-YALSA Best Books for Young Adults and Amelia Bloomer Project Recommended Feminist Literature selections. A longtime book reviewer, she currently reviews young adult literature for the Chicago Tribune.

S. Jae-Jones, called JJ, is an artist, adrenaline junkie, and the NYT bestselling author of WINTERSONG and SHADOWSONG. When not obsessing over books, she can be found jumping out of perfectly good airplanes and cohosting the Pub(lishing) Crawl podcast. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in North Carolina, as well as many other places on the internet. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @sjaejones, or visit her website, sjaejones.com.

Kelly Jensen is a former teen librarian who worked in several public libraries before pursuing a full-time career in writing and editing. Her current position is with Book Riot

Book Blitz

Ryan La Sala grew up in Connecticut, but only physically. Mentally, he spent most of his childhood in the worlds of Sailor Moon and Xena: Warrior Princess, which perhaps explains all the twirling. He studied Anthropology and Neuroscience at Northeastern University before becoming a project manager specialized in digital tools. He technically lives in New York City, but has actually transcended material reality and only takes up a human shell for special occasions, like brunch, and to watch anime (which is banned on the astral plane). Reverie is Ryan’s debut novel. You can visit him at ryanlasala.com.

Helene Dunbar is the author of several novels for young adults including These Gentle Wounds, What Remains, and Boomerang. Over the years, she’s worked as a drama critic, journalist, and marketing manager, and has written on topics as diverse as Irish music, court cases, and theater. Helene was a teen herself in the early 1980s, and used her experience growing up in New York City to frame the novel. Later she wrote grant proposals for the AIDS Activities office of a state government and worked closely with a prominent member of ACT UP NYC to capture the experience of growing up as a young gay man in NYC at the time.   She lives in Nashville with her husband and daughter. Visit her online at helenedunbar.com.

Vince Vawter was reared in Memphis and spent forty years in the newspaper business as a writer, editor, and publisher. He is the author of Paperboy, winner of a 2014 Newbery Honor. Vince has also authored COPYBOY.  He and his wife live on a small farm near Knoxville.

S.K. Ali is a teacher based in Toronto whose writing on Muslim culture and life has appeared in the Toronto Star. Her family of Muslim scholars is consistently listed in the The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, and her insight into Muslim culture is both personal and far-reaching. A mother of a teenage daughter herself, S.K. Ali’s debut YA novel is a beautiful and nuanced story about a young woman exploring her identity through friendship, family, and faith.

Renee Ahdieh is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her spare time, she likes to dance salsa and collect shoes. She is passionate about all kinds of curry, rescue dogs, and college basketball. The first few years of her life were spent in a high-rise in South Korea; consequently, Renée enjoys having her head in the clouds. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband and their tiny overlord of a dog. She is the author of Flame in the Mist and Smoke in the Sun as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling The Wrath and the Dawn and its sequel, The Rose and the Dagger.

Gabby Rivera is a Bronx-born queer Latinx babe on a mission to create the wildest, most fun stories ever. She's the first Latina to write for Marvel comics, penning the solo series America about America Chavez, a portal-punching queer Latina powerhouse. In 2017, Gabby was named one of the top comic creators by the SyFy network, and one of NBC's #Pride30 Innovators. Gabby now makes magic on both coasts, currently residing in California. She writes for all the sweet baby queers and her mom.

Michelle Ruiz Keil is a Latinx novelist and playwright. She teaches writing and curates All Kinds of Fur: A Fairytale Reading Series and Salon in Portland, Oregon. She has been a fellow at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and Lit Camp and is a member of Las Musas, a collective of Latinx kidlit authors. Her published short fiction can be found on Cosmonauts Avenue and in the forthcoming anthology Color outside the Lines. All of Us with Wings is her first novel.

Zetta Elliott is an award-winning author, scholar, and activist. Born in Canada, she moved to the US in 1994 to pursue her PhD in American Studies at NYU. She taught Black Studies at the college level for close to a decade and has worked with urban youth for thirty years. Her poetry has been published in New Daughters of Africa; We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices; the Cave Canem anthology The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South; Check the Rhyme: an Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees; and Coloring Book: an Eclectic Anthology of Fiction and Poetry by Multicultural Writers. She is the author of over thirty books for young readers and currently lives in West Philadelphia. Visit zettaelliott.com to learn more.

Tiffany D. Jackson is the critically acclaimed author of YA novels including the NAACP Image Award-nominated ALLEGEDLY and MONDAY’S NOT COMING, a Walter Dean Myers Honored Book and Coretta Scott King New Talent Award winner. She received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University, her master of arts in media studies from the New School, and has over a decade in TV/Film experience. The Brooklyn native is a lover of naps, cookie dough, and beaches, currently residing in the borough she loves, most likely multitasking. Her most recent novel, LET ME HEAR A RHYME (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books) was published in May 2019.

Alexandra Villasante has always loved telling stories—though not always with words. She has a BFA in Painting and an MA in Combined Media (that’s art school speak for making work out of anything). Born in New Jersey to immigrant parents, Alex has the privilegio of dreaming in both English and Spanish. When she’s not writing, painting or chasing chickens around the yard, Alexandra plans conferences and fundraisers for non-profits. She lives with her family in the semi-wilds of Pennsylvania. You can find Alexandra on Twitter and Instagram at @magpiewrites.

Claribel Ortega went from journalism student, editing her classmates often times hilarious ads and ramblings on the back page of SUNY Purchase’s Independent Newspaper, to a small town reporter, where she enjoyed going to board of ed meetings and texting the town mayors about the line at Starbucks. Today she’s busy turning her obsession with eighties pop culture, magic and video games into books while traveling the world for her day job in marketing. She is the host of the WRITE OR DIE podcast, owner of small graphic design business GIFGRRL and the GIFGRRL SHOP which creates apparel for writers and creatives. She lives in New York with her motorcycle-riding, poet boyfriend & her suspiciously intelligent yorkie, Pancho Villa. Claribel’s debut middle grade novel GHOST SQUAD is coming from Scholastic April, 7th 2020.

NoNieqa Ramos wrote the THE DISTURBED GIRL’S DICTIONARY, a 2018 New York Public Library Best Book for Teens, a 2019 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, and a 2019 In the Margins Award Top Ten pick. THE TRUTH IS will be released September 3rd, 2019! She is a proud member of the Latinx collective Las Musas and Soaring 20's picture book 2020 debuts.

Echo Brown is a writer, performer, and playwright from Cleveland, Ohio. She is best known for her one-woman show Black Virgins Are Not For Hipsters, which Alice Walker praised: "Not since early Whoopi Goldberg have I been so moved by a performer's narrative." A Dartmouth alumna and the first female college graduate in her family, she is currently based in Paris, France. Echo Black Girl Unlimited is her debut novel.

Hafsah Faizal is an American Muslim and brand designer. She’s the founder of IceyDesigns, where she creates websites for authors and beauteous goodies for everyone else. When she’s not writing, she can be found dreaming up her next design, deciding between Assassin’s Creed and Skyrim, or traversing the world. Born in Florida and raised in California, she now resides in Texas with her family and a library of books waiting to be devoured. Her debut novel We Hunt The Flame has received four starred reviews.

Kristina Forest was born and raised in Lawnside, New Jersey, a teeny tiny town that was also the first self-governing African American community north of the Mason-Dixon line. She started dancing when she was seven and her dream job was to be a backup dancer for Michael Jackson. By the time she was seventeen, she’d realized she loved writing more than dancing, so she enrolled at Rowan University and majored in Writing Arts, and then earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the New School. Kristina work in children’s book publishing, and lives in Brooklyn, New York with two huge bookshelves. I Wanna Be Where You Are is her first novel.

Jennifer Mathieu is the author of Devoted, Afterward, The Truth About Alice, the winner of the Children's Choice Teen Debut Author Award, and most recently, The Liars of Mariposa Island. Her 2017 novel Moxie is being developed into a film directed by Amy Poehler for Netflix. Jennifer teaches high school English in Texas, where she lives in the Houston area with her husband and son.

Kelly Jensen is a former teen librarian who worked in several public libraries before pursuing a full-time career in writing and editing. Her current position is with Book Riot (bookriot.com), where she focuses on talking about young adult literature. Her books include Here We Are: Feminism for The Real World and (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, a collection of art, essays, and words to launch a powerful and important conversation about mental health. It was named a best book of 2018 by the Washington Post and earned a Schneider Family Book Award Honor. Her next book is Body Talk, scheduled for Fall 2020.

S. Jae-Jones, called JJ, is an artist, adrenaline junkie, and the NYT bestselling author of WINTERSONG and SHADOWSONG. When not obsessing over books, she can be found jumping out of perfectly good airplanes and cohosting the Pub(lishing) Crawl podcast. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in North Carolina, as well as many other places on the internet. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @sjaejones, or visit her website, sjaejones.com.

Meredith Russo is a trans woman from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she currently lives. She started living as her true self in 2013 and never looked back. She is the author of IF I WAS YOUR GIRL and BIRTHDAY. Find Meredith on Twitter @Mer_Squared.

Angie Manfredi is a librarian and writer who owns every season of Law and Order on DVD and sends over 150 handwritten Valentines every year. She has spent the last 11 years working directly with children and teens of all ages in a public library and now works in library consulting on all things youth services. Angie is fat and not sorry about it. She is a passionate advocate for literacy, diversity, and decolonizing the discourse surrounding children’s literature.