Nadja was born on July 29, 1979. She was twelve when the war broke out in her native country Bosnia. Throughout the next three and a half years, she and all the citizens of the capital Sarajevo suffered from continuous shelling and the deprivation of basic needs. In 1992, Nadja was wounded by a bombshell. She still has seven pieces of shrapnel in her legs. During the war, Nadja began sharing her poetry and diary entries on the National Radio. Soon, she had her own radio show called “The Music Box”. In 1993, four of her poems were featured in the book Mom, I Don’t Want to Go to the Basement. A year later, at 14, Nadja’s diary Sarajevo Childhood Wounded by War was printed in Bosnia. She became known as the Bosnian Anne Frank, and the National Dutch Television created a documentary about her life. #In late 1995, Nadja escaped the war and came to live with a host family in the United States. She began learning English and finished three grades of high school in two years. In the summer of 1995, the sequel to her diary entitled Dreamer’s Insomnia was printed in Bosnia. In 1997, Nadja enrolled in Butler University majoring in Vocal Performance and Theater. She continued to speak and share her experiences around the world at events such as the Global Young Leaders Conference, the State of the World Forum and many others. She was recognized by her university with the first ever “Woman of Distinction Award.” In 1999, she was featured in the book Courage to Give by Jackie Waldman. In 2000, she was in Michael Collopy’s Architects of Peace along with the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. Later the same year, her message was brought to American teenagers with her feature in Teen People Magazine. Upon graduating in 2002, she embarked on a nine-month speaking tour with the non-profit organization Free the Children, promoting peace and tolerance to over 70,000 students across 35 states and four Canadian provinces. Nadja currently lives in Canada and her first North American publication entitled My Childhood Under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary was published in February 2006 by Kids Can Press. Her book has been awarded the 2006 Best Book Award under Social Studies by the Society of School Librarians International as well as nominated for the Norma Fleck Award and the Golden Oak Award. A French translation was released in 2007.

Chieri is a second-generation Japanese Canadian who was born in Quesnel, British Columbia. By the age of one, she and her parents had moved to East Vancouver, where she and her two younger sisters grew up.#Chieri attended Sir John Franklin Elementary. Initially, she had to take English as a Second Language classes as she spoke mostly Japanese at home. An excellent ESL teacher and an inherited love of books helped develop Chieri’s skills quickly, and language arts became one of her favorite subjects.#After graduating from Templeton Secondary School, Chieri attended the University of British Columbia and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.#Chieri’s first picture book, Suki’s Kimono, was a result of losing two children’s writing competitions. She took a story she had written at UBC almost a decade earlier, rewrote it as a picture book and submitted it to a competition. After being shortlisted in that first competition, Chieri honed the story even more and entered a second competition. Again, Suki’s Kimono did not win. But as a result of being shortlisted, two publishers requested a copy of the manuscript, and Kids Can Press came back with an offer to publish.#Suki’s Kimono, illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch, was released in 2003. Chieri enjoyed the picture book experience so much that she decided to continue writing for children.#She has since written stories for Pearson Education, Chirp and Chickadee magazines, and has published three more picture books: Rosie and Buttercup; Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin; and Ojiichan’s Gift.#Chieri lives on the Sunshine Coast with her husband and two undertrained dogs. She wishes she had stuck with her childhood piano lessons and that she was a naturally gifted singer.

Kim Bellefontaine grew up in a military family and had the opportunity to live and study across Canada and Europe. She graduated from Ottawa’s Algonquin College as a Museum Technologist and worked in that field in both Germany and Canada. During that period she found that her interest lay in children’s education and worked on education programs within museums. Her first book, ABC of Canada, is an introduction to our country at the primary level. Kim teamed with a friend who was a known children’s book illustrator for her three published works. #Kim is currently living in Kingston, Ontario, with her two children, Emily and Ben. She is presently expanding her education at St. Lawrence College, but is always looking for and working on new projects.

L. M. (Lucy) Falcone was a couch potato growing up and loved watching television. Her parents were immigrants, and rarely did a book find its way into her home — that is, until she discovered the local library. Encouraged by her beloved grade 5 teacher (Mrs. Cherwaty) to read her short stories aloud to the class, Lucy felt a spark ignite that has never been extinguished. She knew from the tender age of ten that she wanted to be a writer, although along the way she also became a teacher and a private investigator. Eventually she moved to Los Angeles to pursue her writing career. During that time she wrote for such series as The Littlest Hobo, New Monkees and Nickelodeon’s hugely popular Are You Afraid of the Dark?#Upon returning to Canada, Lucy remembered the excitement young viewers had for the spooky Are You Afraid of the Dark? stories and began writing supernatural thrillers for the same preteen audience. She loves writing for this age group because they still believe in magic — and so does she! #Her novels The Mysterious Mummer, Walking with the Dead, The Midnight Curse and The Devil, the Banshee and Me have garnered multiple nominations and several wins, including the Silver Birch, Red Maple and Diamond Willow awards.#Lucy is currently writing the comedic chapter book detective series The Ghost and Max Monroe.

YES Mag is a bimonthly science magazine that makes a wide range of science, technology, and engineering topics fun and accessible to readers young and old. Every issue brings science to life through colourful illustrations and photographs, fascinating articles, fun facts, and hands-on experiments.#YES Mag has been publishing for more than a decade and during that time has won numerous honours and awards including the Michael Smith Award for science promotion and the Eve Savory Award for science communication.~The YES Mag editorial team have written three other books: Fantastic Feats and Failures, The Amazing International Space Station, and Science Detectives. The YES Mag editorial team includes Jude Isabella, Adrienne