James was born in Sydney, Australia in 1954 .He has been a champion long jumper, teacher and teacher librarian, but didn’t start writing until he found himself in an outback town called Cunnamulla. After winning the Australian Children’s Book of the Year Award twice (1996, 1997) James decided to write full time.
NEIL GAIMAN was awarded the Newbery and Carnegie Medals for The Graveyard Book. His other books for younger readers include Coraline (which was made into an Academy-Award-nominated film) and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (which wasn’t). Born in England, he has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. You can learn more at www.mousecircus.com.
Debra Driza is a member of the teen-lit blogging group the Bookanistas and a former practising physical therapist, who discovered tormenting her characters was infinitely more enjoyable. These days you can find her at home in California, adding random colours to her hair and wrangling one husband, two kids, and an assortment of Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Mila 2.0 is her first novel.
Michael Grant is the evil genius of Young Adult Fiction. Among his biggest fans is Stephen King who called the GONE series ‘A driving, torrential narrative’. Michael’s life has been similarly driving and torrential. He’s lived in almost 50 different homes in 14 US states, and moved in with his wife, Katherine Applegate, after knowing her less than 24 hours.
Sarwat Chadda has lived and travelled throughout the world, from China to Guatemala. He’s been lost in Mongolia, abandoned at a volcano in Nicaragua and hidden up a tree from a rhino in Nepal. Not to mention being detained by Homeland Security in the US and chased around Tibet by the Chinese. Maybe he just has that sort of face.
Anyway, now he’s trying to settle in one place and avoid trouble. Hence his new career as a writer. It’s safe, indoors and avoids any form of physical danger.
Claudia Gray has worked as a lawyer, a journalist, a disc jockey, and an extremely poor waitress. Her lifelong interests in old houses, classic movies, vintage style, and history all play a part in creating the world of Evernight.
Maryrose started out writing for the theatre and film, as a lyricist, librettist, playwright and screenwriter. She was the first recipient of the Georgia Bogardus Holof Lyricist Award, and is a three-time recipient of the Richard Rodgers Award for New Musicals, which is administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
She has written a number of novels for young adults including WHY I LET MY HAIR GROW OUT, HOW I FOUND THE PERFECT DRESS and WHAT I WORE TO SAVE THE WORLD.
Christopher Healy spent years reviewing children’s books and media online and in print before setting off to write the hero’s guide to saving your kingdom, his first children’s book. He lives with his wife and their two children in New Jersey. You can find him online at www.christopherhealy.com.
Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, critic, playwright, poet and author of short stories and one of America’s most respected literary figures. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction.
