Henry Winkler

Henry Winkler (aka 'The Fonz') is co-author of the hugely popular Hank Zipzter series, based on his own experiences of dyslexia.

Quinton Winter

Gretchen Woelfle

Author of the delightful picture book Katje the Windmill Cat, illustrated by Nicola Bayley.

Susan Wojciechowski

Author of The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal.,Susan Wojciechowski was a children's librarian for many years. "Every December," she says, "I read the same two or three classic Christmas stories aloud to the children. I tried to find another one I wanted to read and couldn't. So I wrote THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF JONATHAN TOOMEY. I've never written anything that way before. It just came through me in a flood of inspiration and was finished in less than an hour." THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF JONATHAN TOOMEY proved an enormous success, selling out its first printing long before Christmas Day. In addition, it won numerous honors, including the Christopher Award for "affirming the highest values of the human spirit" and Britain's prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal, and was a finalist for a National Book Award. Following the success of THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF JONATHAN TOOMEY, Susan Wojciechowski wrote the acclaimed middle-grade novel BEANY (NOT BEANHEAD)! This time, inspiration came when she was in bed with a cold. "Beany just stayed there, and by the time I was well, the stories were written," she says. Beany has since had more adventures in BEANY AND THE MAGIC CRYSTAL and BEANY AND THE DREADED WEDDING, both of which were honored with a Parents' Choice Gold Award, and more recently, BEANY GOES TO CAMP and BEANY AND THE MEANY. Along with the time she spends writing, Susan Wojciechowski makes many visits to schools, where she shows slides and talks about her books and her own life. Among the information she shares with children is the fact that, like many of them, she had no interest in writing when she was growing up. "In regard to writing for children, I like to create realistic kid role models," she says, "like Beany, who is not perfect, but tries hard." A native of Rochester, New York, Susan Wojciechowski now lives in Pennsylvania with her husband.

Allan Wolf

Allan Wolf: educator-writer-musician extraordinaire. He has literally hundreds of poems committed to memory. He is a veteran traveler through all the diverse worlds of poetry--from poetry slams to public schools, salons to saloons. He turns classic poetry into acoustic tunes as the drummer for The Dead Poets band. He put the Oh! in poetry as the educational director for national touring company Poetry Alive!. Allan Wolf knows poems. This expertise was exhibited in Allan Wolf's first book with Candlewick Press, THE BLOOD-HUNGRY SPLEEN AND OTHER POEMS ABOUT OUR PARTS. A collection of wacky--and anatomically correct--poems about body parts, THE BLOOD-HUNGRY SPLEEN is transforming science classes across the country. Before starting the book, Allan Wolf drew on inspiration from his stint as "Poet in Residence" at a school in Seoul, Korea. "A sixth-grade life science class had displayed their poems about anatomy on a life-size chart of the human body," explains the author. "There was a poem about the intestines on the intestines. A poem about the brain was written on the brain." Since then, he says, "the human body has proved to be an infinite universe of poetic inspiration." Allan Wolf's next book with Candlewick Press, NEW FOUND LAND: A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY, also reveals the writer's poetic roots. The exhilarating tale of Lewis and Clark's journey is written in poetic form: a medley of lyrical and powerful voices from the surprisingly diverse crew. "During the four years it took to research and write NEW FOUND LAND, my head was constantly crowded with the novel's fourteen voices," Allan Wolf says. "They talked to me as I made breakfast, as I dressed the baby, as I delivered newspapers, and as I brushed my teeth. They talked and talked. Alone in my car I began to talk back. And together all fifteen of us worked out the details of the story. Happily, my head is now quiet, the voices having moved to their permanent home within this book." Allan Wolf lives in North Carolina with his wife and three children.

Jill Wolfson

David Wood

Awarded an OBE for services to literature and drama, David has adapted stories by Dick King-Smith and Roald Dahl into stage plays.,About Me: My ambition was always to work in the theatre. When I was ten, I started doing puppet shows and learning magic tricks. In my teens, I did cabaret with a dance band, acted in school and local plays, and went on drama courses. At Oxford University I spent most of my time acting in plays, and writing and performing songs. I was lucky enough to star with Malcolm MacDowell in the film If..., with Shelley Winters on TV in The Vamp, and opposite Sir Michael Redgrave on stage in Voyage Round My Father. About My Work: Children's theatre hijacked me after I wrote my first play for children in 1967. Since then, I have written another sixty and they are, I'm happy to say, performed all over the world. I am not a full-time writer because producing and directing plays, performing in theatres and visiting schools takes up time. But when I write, I have to force myself to keep at it! I have a very nice office, but very rarely write in it! The kitchen table works better! Or my mother-in-law's house by the sea in Cornwall. Or room 208 of a south coast hotel, where I retreat when I have an urgent deadline! I write in longhand on the back of old scripts and letters - I never use new paper till the story or play is typed up. I can't use a typewriter or a computer keyboard because the book looks too finished too soon! But I do love using e-mail! Sidney the Monster was written during a sleepless night in which the line "Where there was once a monster called Sidney" came into my head and wouldn't go away. I delivered it to Walker Books at 9 am the same morning and they accepted it for publication at midday! Oh, if it was always that simple! Things you didn't know about David Wood: 1 - I am chair of Action for Children's Arts, which promotes and celebrates arts for children. 2 - When my family go on holiday, we take Tilly the tortoise - aged approximately eighty. 3 - My favourite foods are crab and American pancakes - but not together.

Douglas Wood

Composer, recording artist, wilderness guide, and self-taught naturalist-Douglas Wood is perhaps most widely known as the highly acclaimed author of OLD TURTLE, a 1993 ABBY Award winner and an International Reading Association Book of the Year. Author of several books for readers of all ages, Douglas says he is always seeking themes that are universally significant to both children and adults. His first book for Candlewick Press, GRANDAD'S PRAYERS OF THE EARTH-winner of the Christopher Medal for "affirming the highest value of the human spirit"-quietly explores the theme of grief and healing while celebrating a human connection to the natural world and the enduring spirit of love. Douglas Wood kept in mind someone very special to his own life when writing GRANDAD'S PRAYERS OF THE EARTH. "I feel I've been getting ready to write this book all my life, for it is about my wise and gentle hero, my Grandad. It's a prayer and a thank you, a walk in the woods, and a remembering smile; and it is for anyone who has ever had a woods to walk, a prayer to whisper, a hero to love." Douglas Wood lives with his family in a log cabin on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minnesota.

Sesame Workshop