Saturday, June 27. 4-5 p.m. Opening Keynote Conversation with Elizabeth Acevedo, Jasmine Guillory, and Nicola Yoon moderated by Leah Johnson.
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| Elizabeth Acevedo | |
Elizabeth Acevedo is the author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie Medal, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also the author of With the Fire on High--which was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal--and Clap When You Land, which was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus Prize finalist. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from the George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. Her upcoming book is Anger Is Only a Shadow (Quill Tree Books, September 15).
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| Jasmine Guillory | |
Jasmine Guillory is the author of nine novels, including The Wedding Date, the Reese's Book Club selection The Proposal, and Flirting Lessons. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Bon Appetit, and Time, and she is a frequent book contributor on the Today Show. She lives in Oakland, Calif. It's Only Dancing (Scholastic, October 6) is her YA debut.
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| Nicola Yoon | |
Nicola Yoon is the author of Everything, Everything, The Sun Is Also a Star, Instructions for Dancing, and is a coauthor of Blackout. She is a National Book Award finalist, a Michael L. Printz Award recipient, a Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe New Talent Award winner and the first Black woman to hit #1 on the New York Times Young Adult bestseller list. Two of her novels have been made into major motion pictures. She's also the co-publisher of Joy Revolution, a Random House YA imprint dedicated to love stories starring people of color. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn, N.Y., and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist David Yoon, and their daughter. Her next book (title to be announced) will be published by Delacorte Press.
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| Leah Johnson | |
Leah Johnson is an eternal Midwesterner, bookseller, and author of award-winning books for children and young adults. Her debut YA novel, You Should See Me in a Crown, was a Stonewall Honor Book and named one of TIME's 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. She is also the editor of the middle grade anthology, Black Girl Power, and co-author of There's Always Next Year with George M. Johnson, among others. She serves on the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers Literature panel. When she's not writing books, she's selling them at Loudmouth Books, her Indianapolis, Ind., bookstore that highlights marginalized authors and uplifts banned or challenged books.
Monday, June 29. 4-4:45 p.m. Closing Keynote with Lois Lowry and Cathy Berner.
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| Lois Lowry | |
Lois Lowry is the author of more than 50 books for children and young adults, including the Giver Quartet and the Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received many honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, Number the Stars and The Giver. Her next book, Building 903, will be published by Clarion September 29.
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| Cathy Berner | |
Cathy Berner, a former school librarian, is the Children's/Young Adult Specialist and Events Coordinator at Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, Texas. She was a judge last year for the National Book Awards in the Young People's Literature category and is the programming coordinator for three literary festivals: Bookworm, TweensRead, and TeenBookCon.