Gayle Forman (www.gayleforman.com) is an award-winning, internationally bestselling author and journalist. She is the author of the number-one New York Times bestseller If I Stay, the New York Times bestsellers Where She Went and Just One Year, as well as Just One Day and the companion e-novella Just One Night. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and daughters. 

Daniel José Older is the author of Half-Resurrection Blues (book one of the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series from Penguin’s Roc imprint) and the upcoming Young Adult novel Shadowshaper (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2015). His first collection of short stories, Salsa Nocturna and the anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, which he co-edited, are available from Crossed Genres Publications. You can find Daniel’s thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic and hear his music at ghoststar.net/ and @djolder on twitter and youtube.

Margo Rabb is the author of the novels Kissing in America and Cures for Heartbreak. Her essays, journalism, book reviews, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, Slate, The Rumpus, Zoetrope: All-Story, Seventeen, Best New American Voices, New Stories from the South, One Story, and elsewhere, and have been broadcast on NPR. She received the grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in the Atlantic fiction contest, first prize in the American Fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. Margo grew up in Queens, New York, and has lived in Texas, Arizona, and the Midwest; she now lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and children.

Eliot Schrefer is a New York Times-bestselling author, and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award. In naming him an Editor’s Choice, the New York Times has called his work “dazzling… big-hearted.” He is also the author of two novels for adults and four other novels for children and young adults. His book have been named to the NPR “best of the year” list, the ALA best fiction list for young adults, and the Chicago Public Library’s “Best of the Best.” His work has also been selected to the Amelia Bloomer List, recognizing best feminist books for young readers, and he has been a finalist for the Walden Award and won the Green Earth Book Award and Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. He lives in New York City.

Abby Sher is a writer, performer, and mother of three cool beans. She wrote and performed for The Second City, ImprovOlympic, HBO and NPR. Her memoir, Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl who Couldn’t Stop Praying got lots of awards and a nod from Oprah. Abby writes regularly for The New York Times and has an advice column called Dear Gefilte. She means well, but is usually five minutes late. www.abbysher.com

Emmy Laybourne is a novelist, screenwriter and former character actress. Emmy’s Monument 14 trilogy has earned critical praise (“Frighteningly real… riveting” – New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice) and has been nominated by readers to the YALSA Teens Top Ten in 2013 and 2014. Before her life as an author, Emmy performed original comedy on Comedy Central, MTV and VH1; and acted in the movies “Superstar,” “The In-Laws” and “Nancy Drew,” among others. Emmy lives outside New York City with her husband, two kids and a flock of 6 nifty chickens. Emmy’s new book SWEET tells the story of a luxury cruise to launch a new diet sweetener that goes comically, then tragically, then terrifyingly wrong. www.emmylaybourne.com