Marcie Aboff

Marcie is the author of more than 30 picture books including "The Giant Jelly Bean Jar", "Uncle Willy's Tickles", and a new series of four books due out later this summer. Marcie also writes beginning readers, chapter books, activity books, and magazine stories. Her short stories have been featured in a variety of children's magazines.
She is a member of the Rutgers University Council on Children's Literature, The Authors Guild, and the Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrator's.

Marcie lives in New Jersey with her family.

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Danny and Kim Adlerman

Kim and Danny first met somewhen around 1989 when they were both working for Macmillan Publishing, a children's publishing house in New York City; Kim was a children's book designer, and Danny was a production manager. People who used to hear that would sometimes think, "So, she illustrates the books, and he writes them". This couldn't be further from the truth, but a more accurate foreshadowing we have never seen...

Together they have written many fun titles including "How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck", "Rock-A-Bye Baby", and "Africa Calling".

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Lesley M.M. Blum

Lesley M. M. Blum is a journalist and writer based in New York City, where she was born. She studied history at Williams College, Oxford University, and Cambridge University. After finishing her graduate degree at Cambridge, she worked for over three years as an off-air reporter and researcher for ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel in Washington, D.C.
She has lived and traveled extensively in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and she relied heavily on the travel journals from her adventures as background material for "Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters". Now she lives in Greenwich Village with her boyfriend and their French bulldog puppy, and is currently completing her second book: "The Rising Star of Rusty Nail".

Linda Bozzo

Linda loves to read, write and dance. Many of her ideas for stories are inspired by her dance students. up and still It was when she started reading picture books to her children that she felt compelled to write and submit her work to magazine and book publishers. She spent endless hours on the internet and at the library learning everything she could about writing. It wasn't long before she joined the Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators. After she attended my first writing conference, she was hooked! She is the author of "My First Fish", My First Horse" and "My First Guinea Pig and Other Small Pets". Linda grew up and still lives in New Jersey.

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Timothy Butcher

Timothy Butcher is a former educator who holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree from West Virginia University along with an M.B.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has worked with education publishers and businesses to develop various educational products. He lives in New York and is the author of "ABACA Flows Over Niagara Falls: An Illustrated History".

www.amoebabooks.com

Michael Buckley

"The Sisters Grimm" series is Michael’s first venture into the world of children’s book writing. His mom and dad insist they are proud of him, even if the whole “I’m going to write a book” idea sounded like another one of their son’s poorly thought out money-making schemes he claimed was “life experience.” Michael lives in New York City with his wife Alison and their dog, Daisy.

www.sistersgrimm.com

Margery Cuyler

Margery has always written stories, ever since she learned how to write. Her creative and wacky family, most of whom are artists, actors, storytellers, and writers, helped her along. Her childhood was never dull. I grew up in the oldest house in Princeton, New Jersey, with three brothers and one sister. There were also four cousins who lived with us after their mother died. Most of my childhood was spent playing Charades, Hide-and-go-Seek, Monopoly, and Chess with my siblings and cousins. We also wrote and performed plays. My parents read aloud to us every night. There was a legend that a Hessian ghost haunted our house. Hessian soldiers, hired by the British during the Revolutionary War, used our house as an army barracks during The Battle of Princeton. We didn't believe in the ghost, but many people in Princeton told us stories about it. These stories inspired one of my books, "The Battlefield Ghost". Margery has also written "Skeleton Hiccups", "The Biggest, Best Snowman" and her latest book "Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler" was released in June.

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DyAnne DiSalvo

Writer and Illustrator, her trade mark theme of "helping neighborhoods," has been featured on Reading Rainbow, and in theatre productions.She received a Congressional Commendation from the State of New Jersey for her book, "Granpa's Corner Store". DyAnne is a Gold Medal recipient of the Irma S. & James H. Black Award for "A Dog Like Jack". DiSalvo rendered the community spirit of Habitat for Humanity in her titled work "A Castle on Viola Street"  Notable awards for her illustrated work also include, "The Society of Illustrators'best of children's books'", 2000, 1991, 1987, 1986. Her work has been recognized by The American Library Association, citing her theme, "Neighborhoods Rule," as an introductory piece on "community heroes", for their "Booklists" page. Her most recent book is the "The Sloppy Copy Slipup".  

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Sarah Beth Durst

Sarah Beth grew up in Central Massachuesetts. At age 10, she decided she wanted to become a writer. Her first story was a cross between the Wizard of Oz and G.I. Joe. With lions. She wrote a lot more after that without lions, including a stageplay for her senior thesis at Princeton University. Not a single lion in that. But there were dragons. Yes, in a stageplay. Sarah currently lives in Stony Brook, NY, with her husband, their daughter, and their cat Perni, whose name was Copernicus until they discovered that he was a girl cat. Her first book "Into the Wild" is a story about fairy tale characters who have escaped their story books.

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Robin Friedman

Robin Friedman was born in Israel and came to the United States when she was five. She lived first in Brooklyn, then Staten Island, and finally, Marlboro, New Jersey, where she graduated from high school and learned to make Big Macs at the local McDonald's. She still lives in New Jersey, and believe it or not, has never once been tempted to reveal the secret sauce recipe. Robin wanted to be a writer since she was little — I wrote tons of stories when I was younger about talking squirrels and girls with pigtails — and sold them to my guitar teacher for 50 cents. Unfortunately, when I stopped taking guitar lessons, this market dried up.

Robin's novels include: "The Girlfriend Project", "The Silent Witness", " How I Survived My Summer Vacation", "The Necklace" and "The Fence". Robin is a long time "Jersey Girl!".

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David Gray

The author of the novel "Zoxil Prolot: First Report From Earth" David Gray never really decided what he was going to do when he grew up. So far, he has worked as a bartender, a financial planner, executive director of an arts organization and a ghostwriter for a well-known series of children’s mysteries.

Currently, he makes a decent living as a consultant to nonprofit organizations through his company. His most satisfying roles have been as husband to ballerina Kyra Nichols, and as father of their two sons, Joe and Cameron. They reside in Princeton, New Jersey.

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Amy Hest

Amy Hest lives in the part of New York City known as Manhattan. Her first book was published about the time her first child was born. In fact, families are important in many of her books. Amy Hest's own childhood was very happy. She spent time reading, riding her bike — and spying! She thinks that writers need to be good spies in order to know what they are writing about. Amy is the author of many books for children including "In the Rain With Baby Duck","Kiss Good Night",  and "When Jessie Came Across the Ocean".

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Jan Huling

Inspired by her boys pint sized cowboy boots, Hoboken, New Jersey writer Jan Huling sat down and came up with this wild and wacky retelling of the classic story of Puss in Boots called "Puss in Cowboy Boots". Her illustrator husband Phil’s sunny landscapes and long, lean characters provide the perfect compliment for the book’s southern drawls and sassy humor. Together, Jan & Phil have created a rootin’-tootin’ ride through a fairy tale Texas that’s sure to be a favorite of kids and their parents alike!

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Phil Huling

Illustrator Phil Huling is married to children's book author Jan Huling. Phil illustrated Jan's book "Puss in Cowboy Boots" and also illustrated the book "Cactus Soup" that was written by Eric A. Kimmel. He lives in Hoboken, NJ with his family.

Gale Sypher Jacob

Gale is the author of the picture book, "Pajama Light" which was inspired by her love of the Maine seacoast. When she was young, she voraciously read her way through the children's book collection at her local library, and then, with the required permission note from my mother, she moved on to the adult collection.  Her love of reading has never waned.

She didn't choose a career until ten years after college graduation.  By that time she was married, the mother of three, and she knew she wanted to combine my love of children and her love of books.  She received an M.L.S. degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

After her degree, she worked part-time for four years as a bibliographer and book reviewer for The Elementary School Library Collection, a yearly publication of the Bro-Dart Foundation.  During this time her paperback bibliography for children’s librarians was published.  In 1977, she left Bro-Dart, and for the next eighteen years she was an elementary school media specialist in New Jersey.

Rose Kent

Rose grew up on Long Island, that sandy haven of fast tawkers, great delis, and a nail shop on every corner. Kings Park, my hometown, actually housed the state psychiatric center (no jokes, please!) There I read, wrote stories in spiral notebooks, played volleyball and tennis, and ate a lot of bagels and deli sandwiches*. And during summers, my wise parents, Harry and Theresa, showed my brothers and sister and me another American way of life by having us spend summers together in Maine on Bauneg Beg Lake.

All those years of love & lunacy, gave me oodles of adventures (some real, some imagined). And often they spill into my books in the form of characters and places. Rose is the author of "Kimchi and Calamari", a beautiful story about adoption and blended families.

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Steven Kroll

I love writing books for children, whether they are picture books for younger readers or non fiction or novels for older ones. But for me, writing is not just about writing. It's about travel. As a writer of children's books, I've been invited to speak at schools and conferences all over America and as far away as Africa, India, China, and South America. When I speak, I like to show slides of my travels because I want to share my excitement with the wider world. When I was growing up, there was no emphasis on writing at school.  No one ever told me I could write a story.  I thought writers were either gods or dead.  It wasn’t until I was thirteen that I took a walk along Central Park West after a rain, noticed how the streetlamps made the wet streets shimmer as if they were made of glass, and ran home to write my first story, “The World is Made of Glass.”  It was only after that that I realized I wanted to be a writer.

I moved to Maine and struggled, writing now for both children and adults.  Four years later, back in New York, I met a children’s book editor named Margery Cuyler, who was the first to publish me and is still publishing me so many years later.  I’ve now written 89 books for children, everything from picture books to American history to novels for young adults.  I speak at schools and conferences all over the world.  I’m married to the journalist, Kathleen Beckett, and we live both in New York City and an old carriage house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  When I’m not writing or traveling, I play a lot of tennis and walk around looking at everything. Other titles include "That Makes Me Mad", "Patches Lost and Found: An Art Story", "Pony Express!" and "Amanda and the Giggling Ghost".

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Ana Lomba

Ana is an expert in early language learning as well as a Parents' Choice Award-winning author. She is also an advocate and hold leadership positions in several language organizations (ACTFL, NNELL & FLENJ). Ana has a law degree from Spain (her country), as well as advanced degrees in Spanish, and advanced degrees in Spanish and Latin American literature from Binghamton University and Princeton University.
Her teaching experience spans 15 years at all levels of instruction. Today her focus is developing innovating language learning products for toddlers, preschoolers, and young children. She also offer workshops and consulting services. She has authored the titles "Little Red Riding Hood" in Spanish and French, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" in Spanish and French and several others in both languages. Ana resides in the Princeton area with her family.

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Tina Louise

Tina Louise, a Gilligan's Island icon, sets sail with her first-ever children's book!

This inspiring book from actress Tina Louise brings nature and the animal kingdom together to invigorate children to reach for the stars in anything they do. Louise cleverly compares the role of an animal or insect side by side to what a child can grow up to be. Fireflies glow in the dark; an aspiring actress can shine on the silver screen. Spiders spin elaborate webs; an aspiring architect can create a skyscraper. Children will think of their own talents as they read along and be inspired to excel. "When I Grow Up" shows that amazing things are happening all the time—and that young readers can grow up to be amazing, too!

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Jennifer Morgan

Jennifer's work as a storyteller, author, educator and environmental advocate flows out of her love of the natural world and cosmology. As former director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey, she started local and national programs for farmers and consumers. In 1996, she took the Earth Literacy program in cosmology and evolution at Genesis Farm, Blairstown, NJ. It so inspired her that she went on to take classes in cosmology and evolution at Princeton University. In sharing what she learned with her six year old son, she discovered that children are intensely interested in the story of the universe. He wanted to know more and more, even the texture of the edge of the Universe. Jennifer consulted with numerous physicists, biologists and anthropoligists regarding science concepts and, over time, bedtime conversations with her son turned into books. "Science is handing us an origin story," she says, "and we've only barely begun to understand its mythic dimensions." She believes that cosmology stories profoundly shape our relationships, work, play, culture, and institutions. Her first book won Learning Magazine's Teachers Choice Award and both books received the highest review ratings from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). Her books are"Born With a Bang", "From Lava to Life" and "Mammals Who Morph". Jennifer live in Princeton, NJ.

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Lisa Mullarkey

Lisa is a school teacher, a school librarian and a children's book author. In fact, she checked a quarter of a million books out to children when she was a school librarian from 1997-2005. Okay, it was really 350,000 books but doesn't a quarter million sound more impressive? Her secret desire is to star in Les Miserables on Broadway, once it comes back to Broadway. She doesn't like veggies, she is a math whiz and lives with her family in NJ. Lisa is the author of "Splashing by the Shore".

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Trinka Hakes-Noble

Noted picture book author and illustrator Trinka Hakes Noble grew up on a small farm in Southern Michigan, one of seven children. She writes, “In a big family of three boys and four girls, we had enough kids to put on shows, form our own clubs and have a band. “The earliest memory I have of wanting to be an artist is the smell of crayons. Our crayons were kept in an old cigar box along with assorted Tinkertoys, odd checkers, and Monopoly pieces. They were broken, chewed, and well used. You couldn’t even recognize the different colors, so you had to test each color first by drawing on the cigar box lid. That lid was a work of art in itself. But the smell when you opened the lid … ahhh … and a nice sheet of manila construction paper … and life’s requirements were met!

The Nobles live in a circa 1780 house in the historic Jockey Hollow area of Bernardsville, New Jersey. Says Trinka, “I still use the same drawing board my father made for me long ago. I still love to draw and I still love the smell of crayons!” Ms. Noble is the author of "The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash", "Apple Tree Christmas", "Hansy's Mermaid", and "The Witch Who Lost Her Shadow" to name but a few.

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Lin Fong-O'Neill

At seventeen I left my native Hong Kong for America. I had a successful career at New York’s JP Morgan Chase & Co. until 2001. I live with my husband, Ben, a hot-rod enthusiast, and our two cats in Colts Neck, New Jersey. We have three grown children.
I love to travel. From snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, wandering in the rain forests of Costa Rica, touring English castles, and admiring the 14th Century Gothic cathedral in Majorca, I believe the wonders of the world can inspire us to accept diversity, among people as well. Through my writing, I hope to promote this concept.
My work has appeared extensively in New York’s Great South Bay Monthly magazine, and New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press. She is the author of "Mommy, Why?" and her latest book "Daddy, Why?"

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Peter Oppenheim

"Telescope Traveller's" author Peter A. Oppenheim has been fascinated with astronomy and space travel since watching the first Moon landing as a child on Long Island, New York.  Today he is an avid astrophotographer taking images of nebulae, galaxies and other astronomical wonders from his self-built observatory.  His photographs have been featured in major magazines such as Astronomy and Time Off.

Mr. Oppenheim has been an active volunteer in Project Astro Nova which teams astronomers with teachers to bring hands-on astronomy to the classroom.  “I love seeing the excitement in the students’ faces when we talk about space. 

They have a wonder and amazement that too many of us lose as we get older,” says the author.He frequently attends “star parties” held by schools and youth organizations, bringing one of his telescopes and sharing first hand views of Saturn to the delight of participants. As a Friend of the FitzRandolph Observatory at Princeton University, he has assisted in the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence using the university’s 36” telescope to search for artificial pulses of light.

When he’s not writing or attending NASA’s Space Academy in Huntsville, Alabama, Mr. Oppenheim provides risk and crisis management services to large corporations. Peter lives in NJ.

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Micol Ostow

Micol Ostow is half Puerto Rican, half Jewish, half student, half writer, half chocolate, half peanut butter. When she is under deadline, she is often half asleep. She believes that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts except in the case of Chubby Hubby ice cream. She lives in New York City where she reads, runs, and drinks way too much coffee. Micol is the author of "Mind Your Manners, Dick and Jane". The illustrator Noah Harlan will be joining her.

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Wendy Pffefer

Wendy Pfeffer, award winning author of many children's books. Some of her titles are "We Gather Together: Celebrating Fall Harvest", "The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice", "Mysterious Spinners", and "From Pumpkin to Seed".Wendy has also written "Writing Children's Books:: Getting Started", for adults. She has taught elementary school, directed a nursery school and led adult classes in writing. She especially enjoys visiting schools, teaching writing workshops and leading interactive presentations with children. Wendy lives in Pennington, New Jersey with her husband Tom.

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Lynda Gene Rymond

I grew up in Feasterville, Pennsylvania. There were not many children in my neighborhood so I made friends with animals, trees, insects, rocks, and books. I often got in trouble for forgetting things - my glasses, my lunch, my homework, but I never forgot a story I loved. Pretty soon, I was making them up on my own. I also liked painting, riding my palomino pony, Comanche, and growing vegetables in my parents' garden.

These days, when I'm not writing, I teach people with brain injuries. I live in Upper Bucks County with my husband, the painter Charles Browning, on Goblin Farm (we call it that because it's very small and right next to a cemetery!). We share Goblin Farm with goats named Diego, Guadalupe, and Perla, a rooster named Little Moon and 5 hens named Mrs. Moon, and a tiger cat named Dayhunter. I'd like to add a pig, two ducks, a horse, a donkey, and a dog or two. And perhaps a cow, if she is not too large. Lynda Gene is the author  of the book "The Village of Basketeers".

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