MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults
July 2009 Residency Guests

Christopher Paul Curtis is the award-winning author of seven books for young readers.  His first book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, won a Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Award.  His second, Bud, Not Buddy won the Newbery Medal Award as well as the Coretta Scott King Award.  His most recent book, Elijah of Buxton, won the Scott O’Dell Historical Fiction Award and his third Coretta Scott King Award.  Other books include Mr. Chickee’s Messy Mission, Mr. Chickee’s Funny Money, and Bucking the Sarge.  Originally from Flint, Michigan, Christopher Paul Curtis now lives with his wife and two children in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Susan Marie Swanson is a poet and picture book writer whose most recent book, The House in the Night, illustrated by Beth Krommes, won a 2009 Caldecott Medal.  Other books include The First Thing My Mama Told Me, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book; Letter to the Lake; and Getting Used to the Dark: 26 Night Poems.  Susan Marie won a McKnight Artist Fellowship in Children’s Literature as well as fellowships in poetry from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board.  She has taught in COMPAS Writers and Artists in the Schools program and in summer arts programs at St. Paul Academy and the Friends School in Minneapolis.

Ed Briant is a writer and illustrator currently teaching at the Savannah College of Art.His illustrations have appeared in most of the best-known newspapers and magazines in the United States and Europe, including GQ, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Sports Illustrated.  His first picture book, Paper Parade, was awarded a Flying Start by Publishers Weekly.  He is also the author and illustrator of Seven Stories, A Day at the Beach, Don’t Look Now, and If You Lived Here You’d Be Home by Now.  His Tales from the Slush Pile is an original comic strip published in Publishers Weekly. Originally from Brighton, England, Ed now lives in Savannah, Georgia, with fellow writer/illustrator Lisa Jahn-Clough.

Anita Silvey has spent thirty-six 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.  Her books include 100 Best Books for Children, 500 Great Books for Teens, the Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators, and I’ll Pass For Your Comrade, a nonfiction history for children and teens of women who fought as soldiers in the Civil War.  She teaches in the children’s literature master’s degree program at Simmons College and is the editor of the Vermont Folklife Center Children’s Book Series.  She is also a member of the Editorial Board of Cricket Magazine and the Literature Consultant for the 2009 Houghton Mifflin Reading Series.

Brian Farrey is the acquisitions editor at Flux, the young adult imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide.  He earned his MFA degree from Hamline University where he won the Outstanding Thesis in fiction.  He reviews for Teen Reads and is an active blogger, including The Flux Blog

Andrew Karre is the editorial director of Carolrhoda Books, the children’s book imprint of Lerner Publishing Group. Previously at Flux, he edited The Way He Lived by Emily Wing Smith and Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception by Maggie.  He is the main blogger at Carolrhoda.Blogspot.com.

 Mary Cummings, formerly the education director at The Loft Literary Center, is now an agent with Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises in Los Angeles, California.  She is the author of two books for middle-grade readers: Three Names of Me and and The Baker’s Boy Went to Sea.

Jennifer Flannery started Flannery Literary Agency in 1992, representing authors who write for children and young adults.  Her authors include Gary Paulsen, Graham Salisbury, Kimberly Willis Holt, Pete Hautman, and Mary Logue.