Margriet Ruurs lives on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, and is the author of 35 books for children. With a Master of Education degree from Simon Fraser University, she teaches writing workshops at elementary schools across North America. The recipient of the International Reading Association’s Presidential Award for Reading and Technology, Margriet conducts author visits, writing workshops and conference presentations from Mongolia to Israel and many places in between. She writes a regular column for Canadian Teacher Magazine and book reviews for the International Educator. Margriet is a popular speaker at reading and literacy conferences. She conducts school visits throughout the school year, sharing her love of reading and writing with thousands of students and teachers in person or via Skype.#“Books truly are a window to the world,” she says. “I learned so much from books when I was a child. And now I love to share stories with children everywhere.“ Many of her books have won awards, including the Storytelling World Award Honor and the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award. My Librarian Is a Camel was awarded the Teachers’ Choice Award and honored as one of IRA’s Notable Books for a Global Society.#Many of Margriet’s books reflect her interest in global issues and the environment. Together with her park ranger husband, she has lived in many places across North America. She likes to read, travel and hike. Currently she runs Between the Covers, a booklovers’ B & B on Salt Spring Island.

Heather Tekavec discovered while working as a preschool teacher that children’s books were a lot more fun than adult books. After falling in love with the works of Pat Hutchins, Keiko Kasza, Jez Alborough and many others, she couldn’t help but start writing some of her own. It’s probably not coincidence that the first two of her eleven published books, Storm Is Coming! and What’s That Awful Smell?, mirror two of her own childhood fears – thunder and yucky smells!#In addition to books, Heather enjoys writing short stories, articles and poems for children’s magazines, such as CRICKET, Chirp, Highlights and Totline, and has delved a few times into writing scripts and directing live theater.#Twenty-some years since it began, Heather still thinks children’s books are more fun than adult books. Wanted: Criminals of the Animal Kingdom is her twelfth published book.#Heather doesn’t teach preschool anymore but still loves meeting children during author visits to schools and libraries. She lives with her husband and three daughters in Cloverdale, British Columbia, sometimes writing, sometimes playing and always reading … children’s books!

When Sangeeta Bhadra was two years old, her mom and dad found her with her teddy bear, Jeremy, under one arm, pen in hand, scribbling furiously over the pages of The Three Bears. She claimed to be writing.#Sangeeta “wrote” many books during that period, but it wasn’t until she was in grade three that she knew she wanted to be an author when she grew up. And that was that! Sangeeta has been writing ever since. She started with picture books, moved on to poetry in grade five and short stories when she got a little older … and came back to picture books while she was studying biology at the University of Toronto.~Sam’s Pet Temper is her first published book. The Nut That Fell from The Tree is her second.#When she is not hard at work writing, Sangeeta enjoys playing the piano, reading mysteries, baking cupcakes and knitting very long scarves.#Sangeeta lives in Brampton, Ontario.

Dan Bar-el is a children’s author, educator and storyteller. His writing includes both chapter books and picture books. Things Are Looking Grimm, Jill was the winner of the 2008 Silver Birch Express award. Alphabetter was chosen by the B.C. government for the Ready, Set, Learn program, which made 50,000 copies available to preschool children across the province. Such a Prince was a 2009 Blue Spruce Honour Book, and Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? has been nominated for a 2012 B.C. Book Prize.#Although he’s been writing all his life in one form or another, Dan got started writing for children while working at an after-school childcare center. He would bring in dozens of books from the library every week for the kids, and he ended up falling in love with picture books himself. #With nearly twenty years’ experience of working with children ages three to thirteen, Dan has had many opportunities to listen to their stories and attune himself to their sense of humor. But Dan writes for his own amusement just as much, finding inspiration through travel and reading, walking and observing, and lying on his back, staring up at the sky and wondering, “What if …?” #In earlier chapters of his life, Dan trained and worked as a stage actor and later wrote and performed comedy. Before dressing up as old women or Greek gods to promote his children’s books, he’d already been costumed as a cowboy, a Mountie, a Scottish warrior, a Russian peasant, a mobster rodent, a rooster comedian and even a dead body.

Frieda Wishinsky is the international award-winning author of over sixty books. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, and writes in a variety of genres: picture books, novels and nonfiction. Her books have been translated into many languages, and her picture book Please, Louise! (Groundwood Books) won the 2008 Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award. Frieda’s newest books are Explorers Who Made It … or Died Trying and A History of Just About Everything, which was co-written with Elizabeth MacLeod.#Frieda loves gardens, talking with friends over coffee and pastry, walking down New York and Paris streets (she grew up in New York, and there’s just something about Paris!), the color red and eating chocolate. Frieda loves chocolate so much she has even written a book about it (Crazy for Chocolate). Frieda loves speaking to students and teachers and enjoys sharing the writing process with students at all levels.