Jane Yolen is the author or editor of over 300 books for children and adults, including Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, Briar Rose, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight.  Called the Hans Christian Andersen of America and the Aesop of the 20^th century, Yolen has won numerous prestigious awards for her writing, including the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, two Christopher Medals, the Golden Sower Award, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, the Golden Kite Award, the Jewish Book Award, and the World Fantasy Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  She’s also won six honorary doctorates in literature.  Her writing spans multiple genres: realistic fiction, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mystery, graphic novels, poetry, picture books, and nonfiction.  She is a much sought-after speaker and lecturer.

Anita Silvey has spent more than thirty years in the children’s book field, including several years as the vice president and publisher of children’s books for Houghton Mifflin, and eleven years as editor-in-chief of The Horn Book Magazine.  She is the author of 100 Best Books for Children and 500 Great Books for Teens and the editor of Children’s Books and Their Creators.  She is a professor in the children’s literature master’s degree program at Simmons College and the editor of the Vermont Folklife Center Children’s Book Series.

Roger Sutton has worked with children’s books for over twenty-five years.  Since 1996 he has been the editor-in-chief of Horn Book Publications, which includes the esteemed The Horn Book Magazine, The Horn Book Guide, and The Horn Book Guide Online.  The latter two rate and review thousands of books a year.  As editor, he reviews books, solicits and edits articles, plans issues, and writes the well-read and well-regarded “Read Roger” blog.  He also oversees the Boston Globe Horn Book Awards, one of the most prestigious honors in the field of children’s and young adult literature.  Before joining The Horn Book, Sutton was a book reviewer and editor at the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books and a children’s and young adult librarian.  He is the author of Hearing Us Out: Voices from the Gay and Lesbian Community.

Wendy Lamb has been the head of Wendy Lamb Books at Random House Children’s Books since 2002. Her imprint has published some of the best novelists in the field: Walter Dean Myers, Patricia Reilly Giff, Christopher Paul Curtis, Meg Rusoff, Graham Salisbury, and Hamline’s own Kelly Easton.  Wendy Lamb books have received over eighty-five starred reviews and more than 100 awards, including a Newbery Honor, an Edgar Allan Poe Award, and a Michael L. Printz Award.  Before coming to Random House, Lamb worked for HarperCollins, Viking, and Delacorte.  One of her early discoveries as an editor was The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1962 by Christopher Paul Curtis which went on to won a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Award.

Catherine Thimmesh is an award-winning author of nonfiction for young readers, including The Sky’s the Limit: Stories of Discovery by Women and Girls, Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon, and her most recent, Lucy Long Ago.  Her books have made numerous lists: Children’s Book of the Month Club Best Nonfiction Book, Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children, Smithsonian Notable Book, ALA Notable Book, and ALA Best Books for Young Adults.  Her awards include the Robert F. Sibert Award, the Minnesota Book Award, a Golden Kite Honor Award, and an Orbus Pictus Honor Book.  Thimmesh lives in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, with her husband and two children.