Cynthia Leitich Smith

About Me: In suburban Kansas City, I began as a child poet and grew into a journalist. I was the editor of my junior high and high school newspapers. I went on to study journalism at The University of Kansas and law at The University of Michigan Law School. Along the way, I had a ton of jobs. I worked as a popcorn popper at a movie theater, a cashier at a gas station, a waitress at a Mexican restaurant, a switchboard operator for a bank, a telemarketer, and a receptionist for a small law firm. I served as a reporting intern for various small-town papers and The Dallas Morning News as well as a marketing intern for a greeting-card company in Kansas City, an oil company in Oklahoma, and a non-profit organization in Topeka. I also held summer/semester clerkships at a judge's office in Kansas, a small women's rights firm in Michigan, and a legal aid in Hawaii. After graduation, I moved to Chicago, where I worked briefly in the law office of the Department of Health and Human Services. But after six months (and a long talk with some ducks in Lake Michigan), I quit my day job to write full time. I eventually relocated and settled in Austin, where I live with my husband and sometimes co-author, Greg Leitich Smith, and four dedicated writer cats. About My Work: I love to literally plunge into my fictional world. For Tantalize, I went house shopping for my characters, confessed my intentions to the realtors, and walked away with floor plans and photos. At the local coffee shop, I tapped hirsute folks on the shoulder and asked if I could take pictures of them to use as models for shape-shifters. I also made a point to dine at every Italian restaurant in Austin. For the NYT best-selling Eternal, I walked every Chicago street that my characters did, trying to see the landscape anew through their eyes. I made notes on the sounds, the smells, the chill in the air. The ink in my pen froze on Navy Pier, and I ended up cutting that scene anyway. What I love most about being a YA author is hearing from YA readers! I'm happy to answer questions about my novels and to recommend additional books by other authors. Three Things You Don't Know About Me: 1 - I live in a haunted house. 2 - I saw "Star Wars: A New Hope" back when it was just called "Star Wars" 370+ times in the theater. 3 - My phobias are: heights, enclosed spaces, children under three, flying monkeys, and lettuce. (It's not the lettuce itself; it's what may be lurking inside the lettuce.)

Pam Smy

Illustrator of the Conan Doyle classic The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Gordon Snell

Writing a story is fun, at any age. When I was eight, I wrote a play which ended with a big duelling scene, and the final stage direction: "They fight. By and and by, they all are dead." I was delighted with my tidy ending, but I went on to write less violent tales of dogs and cats and kangaroos having adventures, and girls and boys finding haunted castles and ghostly princesses and magic bracelets. It was fun to write of a more ordinary world too:of football games and fierce teachers who had to be outwitted, and computers with secret codes, and minds of their own. I was an only child, but I never felt lonely. There were friends and family around, but at times on your own, there is always the wonderful world of imagination. The great thing is, it has no limits. You can imagine all kinds of fantastic things, like the king in my book who decides to build his own special ship and sail to the edge of the world, which everyone thought was flat. People like the idea of Quizzical Island and a King who is always asking questions, and finds some very unexpected answers. I have worked as a broadcaster and lyric-writer as well as writing children's books, and I enjoy performing. So I read my work in schools and libraries and talk about writing, encouraging audiences to do their own writing, whether it's poems or stories or plays. People often ask where I get my ideas, and I always say that if you just keep looking and listening, almost anything can kick-start a story. I watched a sparrow once, pecking around in the grass for food, and thought it must be quite a boring life. So I invented stories about a sparrow who kept trying to be like different birds: a robin, a heron or even a penguin - with disastrous and comical results! You can spark off a story if you imagine animals and birds that can talk and get into sticky situations. It could be your pet dog, or a crow you see perching on a tree, or a horse running round a field. The main thing is to let your imagination roam - that's the way authors get their stories, so why not you? Well, now you know a bit about me, but here are Three Things You Didn't Know: 1. I can make my ears waggle up and down, without moving my head. 2. When I was young, I learned to walk on stilts, and I still can! 3. My name SNELL, is a word that means FAST in German, SHARP, like a wind, in Scotland, and meant BOLD AND BRAVE in Old Anglo-Saxon English!

Maya Soetoro-Ng

Sue Soltis

Chitra Soundar

Jessica Spanyol

Meet the creator of the fantastic new MiniBugs series, perfect for transport mad tots!,Jessica Spanyol wrote and illustrated her first story, "Carlo the Giraffe Who Could Not Read," when she was a precocious six and a half years old. As she grew older, her literary ambitions gave way to artistic ones, and she began a career as a fine artist. But the adult Jessica Spanyol, it turned out, could not shake the memory of Carlo the giraffe. So thirty years after its writing, she determined to rework her original story. As a result, Jessica Spanyol's CARLO LIKES READING retains a delightfully childlike sensibility, with minor alterations and eye-catching artwork added by author thirty years later. "The character Carlo," explains the author, "was based on a blow-up toy giraffe, and the name, 'Carlo,' my brother's best friend." Even Crackers, Carlo's cat, can be traced back to the Spanyol family pet. In CARLO LIKES READING, Carlo the giraffe reads everything he sees. And because his world is covered in labels, there's always a lot of reading to do--Carlo reads labels on the street, in the park, at the market, and even on his dad! "There's plenty here to inspire pointing and identifying action on the part of emerging readers," assures PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, while KIRKUS REVIEWS notes that "this debut is bright, well-conceived, and infectiously enthusiastic." Carlo (and his creator) made such a splash that readers and reviewers clamored for more -- and Carlo has since starred in CARLO LIKES COUNTING, CARLO LIKES COLORS, and CARLO AND THE REALLY NICE LIBRARIAN. Recently, Jessica Spanyol introduced her readers to a new cast of characters in the picture book, GO BUGS GO! Jessica Spanyol studied at the Bath Academy of Art, Brighton Polytechnic, and the Royal College of Art. Since then, in addition to writing the Carlo series, she has worked as a theater set designer, a fine artist, and a tutor of illustration, winning the Folio Society Illustration Award and the Painter-Stainers Award. She lives in England with her family.

Bob Staake

In a recent online interview, Drawn.ca suggested that "to say Bob Staake is just an illustrator is like saying 'The Beatles' were just a bunch of musicians; the title doesn't do the artist justice" and Publisher's Weekly commented that "Bob Staake's modern, crisp illustrations ... practically jump off the page." One of the nation's most successful illustrators, his clients have included The New Yorker, TIME, Fortune, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and countless others. Staake's November 17, 2008 cover of The New Yorker entitled Reflection commemorating Barack Obama's election as the nation's first African- American president was named by TIME as #1 in their list of 10 Top Magazine Covers of 2008, dubbing the image "beautifully rendered" and "simply spectacular" -- in fact, it is the most popular New Yorker cover of all-time according to NewYorkerStore.com. He has authored and/or illustrated over 50 books, including The Donut Chef, Hello Robots, Look A Book, This Is Not A Pumpkin, Pets Go Pop, and others. The New York Times named Staake's 'The Red Lemon' one of the 10 best illustrated books of 2006. Staake lives and works in Chatham, Massachusetts in a 200-year-old house on the elbow of Cape Cod.

Scott Steedman