Author Bios

Casey McQuiston is an American author known for their witty, exuberant, and deeply romantic fiction that spans both adult and young adult audiences. McQuiston grew up in Louisiana and later worked in editorial and communications before their debut novel transformed them overnight into one of the most talked-about new voices in contemporary romance and queer…

Tomi Adeyemi was born in 1993 and grew up in Maryland. She attended Harvard University, where she studied English literature with a focus on fiction writing, and later studied West African mythology and culture in Brazil before channeling those influences into her groundbreaking debut novel. Adeyemi has spoken about her motivation to write the Legacy…

Samira Ahmed was born in Bombay, India, and grew up in Batavia, Illinois, the daughter of Indian immigrant parents. Her upbringing as a South Asian American Muslim woman in the American Midwest shaped her perspective profoundly and gave her both the material and the motivation for the fiction she would later write. Ahmed attended the…

E. Latimer is a Canadian author of young adult fantasy fiction whose work blends folklore, mythology, and dark imaginative storytelling with a sharp eye for character and relationship. Drawing on a lifelong love of fairy tales, myths, and the kind of dark, unsettling stories that have always been part of the fantasy tradition, Latimer has…

Leigh Bardugo was born on April 6, 1975, in Jerusalem, Israel, and grew up in Los Angeles, California, where she developed a passion for storytelling, folklore, and the dark, complex myths of Eastern European culture. She attended Yale University, where she studied comparative literature, and worked for many years in journalism and entertainment before the…

Kelly Yang was born in China and immigrated to the United States as a young child with her family, settling in California. Her early years in America were defined by the experience of poverty, cultural dislocation, and the enormous pressure to succeed in a country that was both full of opportunity and deeply unfamiliar. Yang…

Juliet Marillier was born in 1948 in Dunedin, New Zealand, and grew up with a deep love of history, mythology, and folk tales that would become the bedrock of her extraordinary career as a fantasy novelist. She studied at Otago University in New Zealand, where she earned degrees in music and languages, and worked for…

Rebecca Stead was born in New York City and grew up in Manhattan, an environment that has deeply influenced her fiction — many of her novels are set in New York, and she writes about the city with an intimate knowledge of its neighborhoods, rhythms, and the particular experience of growing up in such a…

Cornelia Funke was born on December 10, 1958, in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, and grew up with a deep love of books and art that shaped both her chosen career and the distinctive visual quality of her fiction. She studied at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, where she trained as an illustrator, and…

Alane Ferguson is an American author best known for her compelling mystery and forensic thriller series for young adults. Growing up in a family with deep roots in children’s literature — her mother is the beloved author Gloria Skurzynski, with whom she collaborated on several novels — Ferguson developed an early appreciation for storytelling craft…