Robin Stevenson is the award-winning author of more than thirty books of fiction and nonfiction for young readers of all ages. Her books have won the Silver Birch Award, the Sheila A. Egoff Award and a Stonewall Award Honor, and have been finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Award and many reader’s choice awards. Robin was the Book and Periodical Council of Canada’s Champion of Free Expression for 2022. In 2023, she was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. She lives on the west coast of Canada with her family.#Follow Robin on Bluesky: @robinstevenson.bsky.social

Amanda West Lewis is a writer, theater artist, and calligrapher. She is the author of ten books, including the collection A Planet Is a Poem (Kids Can Press, 2024), a book that combines science and poetry. Amanda’s novels reflect her desire to explore the choices that young people make as they face challenges in their lives. #Amanda’s writing is also informed by working with young people in theater, and she recently created a staged version of A Planet Is a Poem with young performers at The Ottawa Children’s Theatre. #Amanda has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, with a specialization in picture books. Originally trained in theater performance, she has acted, directed, produced and written for theater. As a calligraphic book artist, she has done extensive study on the development of written forms. Her first book, Writing: A Fact and Fun Book (KCP, 1990), takes children on a letter-based journey from cave art to computers.#Throughout Amanda’s work runs her passion for language, movement and the thrill of asking questions.#When not writing, teaching or making art, Amanda can usually be found in her gardens in the woods of Eastern Ontario, where she lives with her husband, author Tim Wynne-Jones. Her children and grandchildren inspire her to stay curious and keep asking questions.

Melanie has been writing full-time since 2010 and has written a bunch of books, but she’s probably best known for her picture books Missing Nimama, which won the 2016 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, and Stolen Words, which won the 2018 Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award.|In her spare time, Melanie plays guitar, reads manga, collects vinyl, listens to really loud rock music and slightly quieter K-pop, gets tattoos and drinks too much coffee. She lives in Toronto with her family.

Robert Tinkler is a writer, podcast producer and voice actor. He has worked on animated and live-action series for Disney, Netflix, PBS, Cartoon Network and Corus Entertainment. For his performance in the hit PBS series Cyberchase, he received a Daytime Emmy–Award nomination. Robert lives with his family in Toronto, Ontario.

Nicola Jones is an award-winning science journalist with a background in chemistry and oceanography who lives in the wilds of Pemberton, British Columbia. She writes about all science from anthropology to quantum physics, with environmental issues at the heart of it all. While she normally writes features for grown-ups, she has also published for children in the magazine Current Science. In 2019, she gave a TED Talk about noise pollution in the ocean.