Penguin Random House Winter Book & Author Festival 2025 (original) (raw)
On December 4, join Penguin Random House, Library Journal, and School Library Journal for our Winter 2025 virtual book and author festival, a free day-long event celebrating reading, authors, and librarians everywhere! Enjoy a day packed with author panels and interviews, virtual shelf browsing, audiobook discovery, and adding to your TBR pile.
You’ll hear from many of your favorite authors, whose work runs the gamut from Picture Books to Young Adult titles to the best new Fiction and Nonfiction for adults. There is something of interest for every reader. Attendees will also have the opportunity to check out the virtual exhibit hall, access eGalleys, and enter to win prizes and giveaways.
EVENT HOURS: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM ET
While the conference will be hosted with ON24, all live sessions will be on Zoom. Make sure to log in to your work or personal Zoom account before the day starts to avoid having to log in for each session.
The Virtual Environment is optimized for 1024 X 768 screen resolution. Joining the environment with a cell phone is not recommended. Please make sure your computer and browser are up to date. Chrome tends to work best. The event platform does not support IE11 + Windows 7 or older versions.
CE certificates are available in the event environment for all keynotes and panels, whether you view them live or on-demand. Certificates are not provided for sponsored content.
If on the day of the event you find that you are unable to access the environment or join a session, please know that sessions will be available for on-demand viewing within 24 hours, and the entire event will be accessible until March 4, 2026.
By registering for this event or webcast, you are agreeing to Library Journal Privacy Policy and Code of Conduct Policy and agreeing that Library Journal may share your registration information with current and future sponsors of this event.
Having trouble registering? Contact the Event Manager
10:00 – 10:25 AM ET | Exhibit Hall Opens/Visit the Booths
10:25 – 10:55 AM ET | Opening Keynote
Tayari Jones discusses Kin (Penguin Random House), an exuberant, richly told novel about mothers and daughters, about a lifelong friendship, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South.
Moderator: Jill Cox-Cordova, Former LJ Editor
TWO CONCURRENT PANELS
11:00 – 11:50 AM ET | Magic & Love in YA Lit
Romance reigns in these fantastical tales set against the backdrop of magical realms.
Melissa de la Cruz, Sibylline (Penguin Young Readers)
Angela Montoya, Carnival Fantástico (Random House Children's Books)
Clíodhna O’Sullivan, Her Hidden Fire (Penguin Young Readers)
Amelie Wen Zhao, Dragon and the Sun Lotus (Random House Children's Books)
Moderator: Allison Tran, Library Services Manager, City of Irvine (CA)
11:00 – 11:50 AM ET | She Writes Dangerously
Tapping into our deepest anxieties to create unforgettable stories, morally grey characters, and twists that keep us up at night.
Ilona Bannister, Five (Crown)
Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear (Knopf)
Leodora Darlington, The Exes (Dutton)
Isha Raya, You’ll Never Forget Me (Bantam)
Jennifer van der Kleut, The Better Mother (Crooked Lane)
Moderator: Ashley Rayner, Librarian at NORC, University of Chicago (IL)
TWO CONCURRENT PANELS
11:55 AM – 12:45 PM ET | First Time Fiction
A celebration of bold, new perspectives and breakout talent, with stories of family struggles, resurrection, and difficult choices.
Tolani Akinola, Leave Your Mess at Home (Pamela Dorman Books)
Heather Eng, Double Happiness (Tiny Reparations Books)
Juliet Faithfull, Liar's Dice (Random House)
Rebecca Lehmann, The Beheading Game (Crown)
Erin L. McCoy, Underlake (Doubleday)
Moderator: Kristyn Dorfman, Lower and Middle School Librarian, Friends Academy (NY)
11:55 AM – 12:45 PM ET | Risky and Vulnerable Nonfiction
Traveling to a war zone; exposing family secrets; revealing mortifying truths in order to break the grip of shame: Three Steerforth Press authors put themselves out there for the sake of honest storytelling and the power of human connection.
Francesca Fontana, The Family Snitch
Maria Milland, Born at the Gates of Hell
Jowita Bydlowska, Unshaming
Moderator: Chip Fleischer, Co-founder and Senior Editor, Steerforth Press
TWO CONCURRENT PANELS
12:50 – 1:40 PM ET | Book Club Picks
A look at how intimate stories about friendship, growing older, and personal tragedy can help us tackle universal themes.
Allegra Goodman, This Is Not About Us (The Dial Press)
April Reynolds, The Shape of Dreams (Knopf)
Maria Semple, Go Gentle (Putnam)
Emma Straub, American Fantasy (Riverhead)
Kelly Yang, The Take (Berkley)
Moderator: Dontaná McPherson-Joseph, Collection Management Librarian, Oak Park Public Library (IL)
12:50 – 1:40 PM ET | The Heart of the Story: Middle Grade Authors Shaping Conversations
Coming-of-age stories grapple with truth, growth, and consequences.
Huda Al-Marashi, Hail Mariam (Penguin Young Readers)
Chrystal D. Giles, Listen to the Girls (Random House Children's Books)
Tae Keller, When Tomorrow Burns (Random House Children's Books)
Chanel Miller, The Moon Without Stars (Penguin Young Readers)
Moderator: Heather Lassley, Librarian, Frisco ISD/ Trent Middle School (TX)
1:45 – 2:15 PM ET | Afternoon Keynote
Learn more about Found Sound (Penguin Young Readers), a delightfully harmonious mother-son collaboration from bestselling author Meg Wolitzer and audio-producer Charlie Panek about a sound-inspired scavenger hunt.
Moderator: Jenny Arch, Children's Services Librarian, South Hadley Public Library (MA)
TWO CONCURRENT PANELS
2:20 – 3:10 PM ET | Whimsy, Wonder, and a Touch of Magic
Books that blend the magical with the mundane, from glowing jellyfish to book witches.
Katherine Arden, The Unicorn Hunters (Del Rey)
Michelle Maryk, The Found Object Society: A Novel (Hyperion)
Meg Shaffer, The Book Witch (Ballantine Books)
Tessa Yang, The Jellyfish Problem (Berkley)
Moderator: Roxanne Hsu Feldman, High School Librarian, The Dalton School (NY)
2:20 – 3:10 PM ET | Zando Book Club Picks
Women’s fiction that uniquely explores desire, family, friendship and treason.
Claire Fuller, Hunger & Thirst
Kyle McCarthy, Immersions
Alexandra Oliva, The Radiant Dark
Emma Parry, Mrs. Benedict Arnold
Moderator: Masie Cochran, Editorial Director, Zando | Tin House
TWO CONCURRENT PANELS
3:15 – 4:05 PM ET | Falling Hard for Romantasy
Read about characters falling in love in new fantasy worlds of dark academia, spies, magical familiars, and assassins.
Heba Al-Wasity, Weavingshaw (Del Rey)
Keshe Chow, Strange Familiars (Ace)
Amy de la Force, A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (DK)
Braidee Otto, Songbird of the Sorrows (The Dial Press)
Madeline Taylor, Heir of Illusion (Zando Slowburn)
Moderator: Nicole Gaudier Alemañy, Children's Librarian, Brooklyn Public Library (NY)
3:15 – 4:05 PM ET | Writing About Writing
Whether learning about famous authors and their work or sharing how to craft a story, these books show the human side of writing.
Ramona Ausubel, Unstuck (Tin House)
Alia Hanna Habib, Take It From Me (Pantheon)
Mark Oppenheimer, Judy Blume (Putnam)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Small Town Girls (Knopf)
Namwali Serpell, On Morrison (Hogarth)
Moderator: Jennie Mills, Director, Shorewood-Troy Library (IL)
4:10 – 4:40 PM ET | Closing Keynote
Librarian, literacy ambassador, TIME100 Creators honoree, and new Reading Rainbow host Mychal Threets invites all to find themselves at the library! I’m So Happy You’re Here: A Celebration of Library Joy (Random House Children’s Books) is perfect for little readers who are regular visitors and those who might be stepping into the stacks for the first time.
Moderator: Brandi Grant, Middle School Teacher-Librarian, Frisco ISD (TX)
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
| 
| | | Tayari Jones is the author of four novels_,_ most recently An American Marriage, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list and his year-end roundup. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award and has been published in two dozen countries. Jones is the C.H. Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing and lives in Atlanta. Her upcoming novel, Kin, will be published by Knopf in February 2026. |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| 
| | | Charlie Panek is a music and audio producer and editor. He crafts music from scratch using field recordings to turn next-to-nothing into something with restorative and creative problem solving. Panek recognizes that audio is crucial to successful storytelling across various mediums. Found Sound is his first novel. |
| 
| | | Mychal Threets is a librarian and advocate for the spread of library joy! He is the creator of many viral clips sharing affirmations and encouragement for all who visit the library. Currently, Mychal serves as the resident librarian for PBS KIDS and was just named the new host of Reading Rainbow! |
| 
| | | Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels for adults, including The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, The Wife, and The Female Persuasion; the young adult novel Belzhar; and the middle-grade novels The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman and To Night Owl From Dogfish. Wolitzer lives in New York City. |
SPEAKERS
| 
| | | Tolani Akinola is a Reese’s Book Club LitUp Fellow. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MPH from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She lives outside of Atlanta. |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| 
| | | Huda Al-Marashi writes for both children and adults. She is a coauthor of the middle grade novel Grounded, which won the Walter Dean Myers Honor award, and the author of the memoir First Comes Marriage: My Not-So-Typical American Love Story. Her other writing has appeared in various anthologies and news outlets, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and al Jazeera. She is a fellow and mentor with the Highlights Foundation Muslim Storytellers Program, and she lives in San Diego, California with her husband and three children. |
| 
| | | Heba Al-Wasity was inspired to write by her own experiences of being born an Iraqi refugee in Libya, growing up in Canada, and attending medical school in the UK. She has worked in emergency care and most recently in primary care, gaining firsthand insight into the ways that poverty and deprivation can lead to social inequalities. She currently lives with her husband near Manchester, England, just close enough to the moors to set her imagination alight. |
| 
| | | Katherine Arden is the New York Times bestselling author of The Warm Hands of Ghosts, the Winternight trilogy, and the Small Spaces Quartet. In addition to writing, she enjoys aimless travel, growing flowers, and running wild through the woods with her dog, Moose. She lives in Vermont. |
| 
| | | Ramona Ausubel is the author of five books, most recently The Last Animal which was a national bestseller, received the National Book Foundation Science + Nature Prize and was a Barnes & Noble book of the month. Her previous books are Awayland: Stories, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, A Guide to Being Born and No One is Here Except All of Us. She is a professor at Colorado State University and has taught in the Bennington Writing Seminars, Tin House Writing Workshop, Writing by Writers, the Community of Writers, Bread Loaf Environmental, Writing Workshop Paris and elsewhere. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her family. |
| 
| | | Ilona Bannister, born and raised in New York, lives in the UK with her husband and sons. Her first book, When I Ran Away, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. |
| 
| | | Caro Claire Burke received her Master’s in Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is the co-host of Diabolical Lies, a politics and culture podcast. Yesteryear is her first novel. |
| 
| | | Jowita Bydlowska is the author of the memoir Drunk Mom, and the novels Guy, Possessed, and Monster. She's also a prolific short-story writer, journalist, and a professor at the Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University. She was born in Warsaw, Poland and came to Canada as a teenager. She lives in Toronto with her son and their chihuahua. |
| 
| | | Keshe Chow is a #1 Sunday Times bestselling author and a specialist feline medicine veterinarian, which means her life basically revolves around books and cats. She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband, two kids, one cat, and way too many house plants. |
| 
| | | Leodora Darlington is a writer from London with Ghanaian heritage. She received a distinction for her masters in creative writing from Brunel University of London. A Bookseller Rising Star in 2021, Leodora is also an editor and has published a range of bestselling fiction. The Exes is her debut novel. |
| 
| | | Melissa de la Cruz is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Publishers Weekly internationally bestselling author of many critically acclaimed books for readers of all ages, including the Blue Bloods series, the Queen's Secret duet, Disney's Descendants novels, and the Summer on East End series. Her books have sold over eight million copies, and the Witches of East End series became an hour-long television drama on the Lifetime network. Visit her at melissa-delacruz.com |
| 
| | | Amy de la Force is a bisexual writer of romantasy and speculative fiction. Her writing has been shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2024 and longlisted for the Mslexia Prize. Amy is an alumna of Curtis Brown Creative’s selective novel-writing program. An ex–martial artist, she also used to train in kung fu and medieval sword fighting. |
| 
| | | Heather Eng is a third-generation Chinese American who grew up in Queens, New York. A lifelong writer, she graduated from Boston University with a journalism degree, and worked as a newspaper journalist, web editor, and senior marketing leader in the tech industry. Heather lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter. Double Happiness is her first novel. |
| 
| | | Juliet Faithfull is a Spanish-British-American writer who grew up in Brazil. Liar’s Dice, her first novel, was a winner of the 2024 Irish Writers Centre’s Novel Fair and a semifinalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She was awarded a Pauline Scheer Fellowship by GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program, in Boston, and her short stories have been published in the Bellevue Literary Review and Urbanus Magazine. A graduate of Harvard University and Smith College School for Social Work, Juliet works as a trilingual psychotherapist and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her two sons. |
| 
| | | Francesca Fontana is an award-winning reporter at the Wall Street Journal. She is a graduate of the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College. In 2020, she received a Front Page Award from the Newswomen’s Club of New York. She lives in Brooklyn with her cat, Jiji. |
| 
| | | Claire Fuller is the author of Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize; Swimming Lessons; Bitter Orange; Unsettled Ground, which won the Costa Novel Award and was a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction; and The Memory of Animals. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband. |
| 
| | | Chrystal D. Giles is a champion for diversity in children’s literature. She is also the author of Take Back the Block and Not an Easy Win, which have received multiple starred reviews and made multiple year end and state award lists. Chrystal lives outside Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband and son and is currently working on her next middle-grade novel. |
| 
| | | Allegra Goodman is the author of seven novels, including the national bestseller Isola, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick, Sam, which was a Read with Jenna selection, and her upcoming new novel This Is Not About Us, being published on February 10, 2025; two short story collections; and a novel for young readers. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. |
| 
| | | Alia Hanna Habib is a Vice President and literary agent at The Gernert Company, where she represents MacArthur Fellows, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, National Book Award finalists, and numerous New York Times bestselling authors. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. |
| 
| | | Tae Keller is the Newbery Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of When You Trap a Tiger and The Science of Breakable Things. She was born and raised in Honolulu, where she grew up on purple rice, Spam musubi, and her halmoni's stories. After high school, she moved in search of snow, and now lives in Seattle. |
| 
| | | Rebecca Lehmann is an award-winning poet and essayist. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Maytag Fellow. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Between the Crackups; Ringer, winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize (selected by Ross Gay); and The Sweating Sickness. Her writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, NPR’s The Slowdown, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. She lives in Indiana with her family, where she is an associate professor of English and Gender and Women’s Studies at Saint Mary’s College. |
| 
| | | Michelle Maryk graduated from Cornell University with a degree in English and attended the Yale Writer’s Workshop. For the better part of twenty-five years, she’s been a successful voiceover, on-camera commercial, and comedic actor, and she is a dual Swedish and US citizen. The Found Object Society is her debut novel. |
| 
| | | Kyle McCarthy is the author of the novel Everyone Knows How Much I Love You, and her fiction and essays have appeared in Best American Short Stories, American Short Fiction, n+1, and elsewhere. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she lives in Brooklyn, New York. |
| 
| | | Erin L. McCoy is the author of the poetry collection Wrecks, a finalist for the Noemi Press Book Award. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Narrative, Conjunctions, Bennington Review, The American Poetry Review, and Best New Poets, among other publications. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Erin has lived in Seattle, Malaysia, Spain, and two St. Petersburgs. |
| 
| | | Maria Milland is a Danish obstetrician and gynecologist who has been deployed 11 times for international organizations to various countries throughout Africa, the Middle- and Far-East, and the Caribbean. In 2022, she was dispatched to Syria where she worked at one of the al-Hol-camp's hospitals for 9 months. Born at the Gates of Hell is her first book. |
| 
| | | Chanel Miller is a writer and artist. Her first children’s book, Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, was a Newbery Honor winner and an instant New York Times bestseller. Her memoir, Know My Name, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Ridenhour Book Prize, and the California Book Award. She was named one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 and a Time Next 100 honoree and was a Glamour Woman of the Year honoree. You can visit her online at Chanel-Miller.com or follow her on Instagram @Chanel_Miller. |
| 
| | | Angela Montoya has been obsessed with the magic of storytelling since she was a little girl. She hasn’t seen a day without a book in her hand, a show tune in her mind, or a movie quote on her lips. She is the author of Sinner's Isle and A Cruel Thirst. When she isn’t lost in the world of words, Angela can be found hiding away on her small farm in Northern California, where she’s busy bossing around her partner and their two children, as well as a host of animals. |
| 
| | | Alexandra Oliva is the author of The Last One, her debut which was selected as a Best Book of 2016 by The Seattle Times and was translated into twenty-five languages; and Forget Me Not. She grew up in a tiny town in New York's Adirondack Mountains and received her BA from Yale University and her MFA from The New School. She now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family. |
| 
| | | Mark Oppenheimer is a seasoned journalist and author of four critically acclaimed books, including Squirrel Hill, Wisenheimer, and Thirteen and a Day. He has taught journalism, nonfiction writing, and history, and he is now professor of practice at Washington University in St. Louis and lives in Connecticut with his family. |
| 
| | | Clíodhna O’Sullivan is a writer based in Co. Louth, Ireland. She works as a legal counsel and plays in a band, Molasha (you can find them on Spotify!). She's married with three children, as well as far too many cats and a dog. |
| 
| | | A self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, Braidee Otto combines her academic background in literary studies with a deep passion for storytelling to create heartfelt, immersive narratives. Songbird of the Sorrows is the first installment in her debut adult romantic fantasy series, Myths of the Empyrieos. She lives in Adelaide, South Australia with her partner, two beloved dogs, and a cat that appeared in her backyard on the winter solstice. |
| 
| | | Emma Parry is a literary agent in New York. Born in England, she’s now lived in America for half her life and championed many admired, beloved, and bestselling authors. She first came across a reference to "the young wife and mother whose loyalist leanings changed the course of a nation" in Nathaniel Philbrick’s book Valiant Ambition a decade ago, and has researched and imagined Peggy’s story in every off hour since. She spends her time between New York City and the house she built with her family in the Hudson Valley. |
| 
| | | Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, Quiet Dell, and Night Watch, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2024. Her work has been a finalist once for the National Book Award and twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The recipient of Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, Howard, Bunting, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Boston and New York. |
| 
| | | Isha Raya is a fan of psychological thrillers featuring questionable morals, mastermind schemes, and brown women who get to be anything from superstars to supervillains. She graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in biology and currently resides in the depths of your mind. You'll Never Forget Me is her debut novel. |
| 
| | | April Reynolds is the author of Knee-Deep in Wonder, which won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Award and the PEN/Open Book Beyond Margins Award. April has taught at New York University, the 92nd Street Y, and currently teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Her second book is The Shape of Dreams and is forthcoming from Knopf. Sam with Ants in His Pants is her debut children's book. |
| 
| | | Maria Semple is the bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine. Her novels have been translated into forty languages. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for TV. She lives in New York. |
| 
| | | Namwali Serpell was born in Lusaka and lives in New York. Her debut novel, The Old Drift, won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times_’s Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her second novel, The Furrows, was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was selected as one of The New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year. Her book of essays, Stranger Faces, was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. She is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction, the Caine Prize for African Writing, and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award. She is a professor of English at Harvard University. |
| 
| | | Meg Shaffer is the USA Today bestselling author of The Lost Story and The Wishing Game, which was a Book of the Month finalist for Book of the Year as well as a Reader’s Digest and Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and has been translated into twenty-three languages._ Shaffer holds an MFA in TV and Screenwriting from Stephens College. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and two cats. The cats are not writers. |
| 
| | | Emma Straub is the New York Times bestselling author of six books for adults: the novels This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, and her work has been published in more than 20 languages. Emma and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. |
| 
| | | Madeline Taylor is a fantasy romance author with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. She loves to escape reality whenever possible, so reading and writing are great outlets for her. Her other notable hobbies include maladaptive daydreaming, listening to Taylor Swift, and being bossed around by a senile pug. She currently resides in Arkansas. |
| 
| | | Jennifer van der Kleut (née McBride) is an award-winning former journalist of both print and digital publications, including the DC affiliate of ABC7 News. A graduate of San Jose State University, she spent most of her life in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC, where she currently lives with her husband and two sons. For nearly a decade, she was the lead singer of the Bay Area-based band SweetDuration, and performed with artists like Jason Mraz, Big Country, Chantal Kreviazuk, and Stabbing Westward. When she’s not writing, she loves going to the beach with her family, going to concerts with her girlfriends, and getting lost in the pages of a book. |
| 
| | | Kelly Yang is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Front Desk series, New from Here, Finally Seen, Finally Heard, young adult novels Parachutes and Private Label, and picture books Yes We Will and Little Bird Laila. Her books have earned multiple awards, including the 2019 APALA Award for Children’s Literature and the Strega Prize, and have featured on multiple best of the year lists. In addition to being a novelist, Kelly has written screenplays and television pilots for Netflix, CBS Studios, and the CW. The Take is her first adult novel. |
| 
| | | Tessa Yang is the author of the short story collection The Runaway Restaurant. Her work has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Cincinnati Review, Joyland, Foglifter, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from Indiana University and currently lives in Upstate New York. The Jellyfish Problem is her first novel. |
| 
| | | Amélie Wen Zhao is the New York Times, Sunday Times, and internationally bestselling author of The Scorpion and the Night Blossom, the Song of the Last Kingdom duology, and the Blood Heir trilogy. She was born in Paris and grew up in Beijing, where she spent her days at her grandmother’s courtyard house. She attended college in the United States and now resides in New York City, working as a finance professional by day and fantasy author by night. |
| | | | MODERATORS | |
| 
| | | Nicole Gaudier Alemañy was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. She has degrees in History (BA), Art History (BA, & MA), and Information Science (MSI). A library professional for almost 11 years, she has worked at the Florida State University Libraries, the Jacksonville Public Library, and currently at the Brooklyn Public Library. This year, Nicole became a reviewer for Library Journal and School Library Journal. She loves reading, crafting, cooking, watching movies and sports, and attending events in New York City. |
| 
| | | Jenny Arch, Children's Librarian, South Hadley Public Library (MA). |
| 
| | | Jill Cox-Cordova is a former nonfiction associate editor for Library Journal. She holds an MFA from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, and a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University. She worked as a journalist for 21 years at such media outlets as CNN.com, The Weather Channel, MSNBC, and WSB-TV. She also freelanced for Essence magazine. As a creative writer, she has had flash fiction published in an anthology and creative nonfiction in Parks and Points, where she placed second in the publication’s essay contest. |
| 
| | | Kristyn Dorfman has been a school librarian for over a decade and has worked with children of all ages, from early childhood to High School Seniors. She has been reviewing for School Library Journal since 2013 and has served on several ALA and ALA affiliate committees including most recently APALA's 2020-2021 Youth Literature Award. She spends most of her free time reading, writing, doing the crossword, and spending time with her three young children. |
| 
| | | Roxanne Feldman is an immigrant from Taiwan who came to the U.S to study children's literature. She holds a Master's in Children's Literature from Simmons University and an MLS from The Palmer School at Long Island University. After 26 years as the middle school librarian at the Dalton School, Roxanne transitioned to the High School Library in 2023 and is working closely with students on research projects. Roxanne served on the Newbery Award, Boston Globe-Horn Book award, and Kirkus Award selection committees, and other notable children's and YA book selection committees. |
| 
| | | Brandi Grant is a dedicated middle school librarian in North Texas with over 25 years in education, including 15 years as a school librarian. A proud “Lit Librarianista,” she is known for cultivating inclusive, joyful library spaces that inspire collaboration, creativity, and a lifelong love of reading. Brandi believes the library belongs to everyone — a place filled with library joy where students are empowered to COLLABORATE, INNOVATE, and ESCAPE through learning and imagination. |
| 
| | | After 7 years of being a teacher, Heather Lassley felt a calling to another area in the school, the library. Heather has worked in Frisco ISD as a librarian for 13 years in the middle school area. Her passions are collection development, teaching research, and building a library for all students. |
| 
| | | Dontaná McPherson-Joseph is an avid reader and dedicated librarian with a passion for curating diverse collections. An active member of the American Library Association, she currently serves as Chair of the Rainbow Round Table. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her pets Monroe and Pistachio, and several overflowing bookshelves. |
| 
| | | Jennie Mills has been a librarian for 25 years and a library director in Illinois for twenty. She's taught reference, reader's advisory, and collection development at the community college level. She's been a reviewer for Library Journal for ten years, primarily for women's literature, with the occasional horror and science-fiction book thrown in. Mills serves on the Board of the Illinois Library Association and the Illinois Intellectual Freedom Committee. |
| 
| | | Ashley Rayner is a research librarian at NORC at the University of Chicago. She has been an academic and public librarian as well, all within the Chicagoland area. Ashley loves reading any genre but she has a special love for speculative fiction, historical fiction, and thrillers. She started writing book reviews for Booklist in 2020 and they help her stay connected to fiction as a librarian at a social science research organization. When she's not reading or researching, Ashley can be found playing video games, cooking, planning her next karaoke debut song, tweeting at @ashley_rayner, or hanging out with her husband and two kids. |
| 
| | | Allison Tran is a Library Services Manager for the City of Irvine in California. She's dedicated to fostering self-expression, curiosity, and empathy in the community through art and literature. Before earning her Masters of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University in 2006, Allison taught English in Japan. |