Wallace West is an award-winning children’s book author-illustrator and a world explorer. His first picture book, Mighty Red Riding Hood, won a Lambda Literary Award. He also illustrated the New York Times bestselling middle-grade Dogtown series by legendary authors Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko. Kirkus has called his illustrations “utterly charming” and “expressive” with a vibrancy “that relates as much of the story as the text itself.” Wallace was born in Houston, Texas, came of age in Paris, France, and spends most of his time on the U.S. East Coast. By day he writes and scribbles, by night he dreams of adopting a snake.

Self-Identifiers: Gay; LGBTQIA+

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Cornelius Van Wright is an award-winning children’s book illustrator, an author, and an art instructor. He has illustrated numerous picture books, many of which he co-illustrated with his wife, Ying Hwa-Hu. His work has appeared on Reading Rainbow and Storytime and has been exhibited in Bologna Book Fair and the Society of Illustrators. Cornelius’ authored-illustrated picture books have garnered praise from The Horn Book, Kirkus Review, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and many others. Cornelius also teaches at Fred Dolan Art Academy. His students have attended and graduated from many top art colleges in the country. Cornelius lives with his wife in New York City.

Self-Identifiers: African-American

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Jared Andrew Schorr is an illustrator living in Southern California. He is the illustrator of Better Together (Abrams Appleseed, 2017) and Peaceful Fights for Equal Rights (Simon & Schuster, 2018), and specializes in creating detailed work entirely from cut paper. His work has appeared in many publications, as well as in galleries and homes around the world.

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Israel Sanchez lives in Los Angeles and has worked as an art director for Disney and Netflix animation studios. He has written and illustrated comics for the Flight anthology series, Spongebob Comics, and the Fable Comics collection. He loves to paint in gouache and used it for his illustrations in the picture book, The Dinosaur Tooth Fairy (Arthur A. Levine Books).Self-Identifiers: Hispanic; Mexican; Latino 

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Sean Rubin was born in Brooklyn, New York. As a city kid, he entertained himself by collecting interesting things, learning about unusual subjects, and by drawing characters from books, especially Redwall and The Lord of the Rings. Bolivar, the first book Sean both wrote and illustrated, received three starred reviews, and was nominated for an Eisner award, an ELG, and a Ringo award.

Self-Identifiers: Jewish; New York City; Rural

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Andy Rash is the author and illustrator of several picture books, including The Robots Are Coming, Are You a Horse?, Agent A to Agent Z, and Eclipse. Andy’s illustrations have been featured in The New York Times, Time, Wired, the New Yorker, and other national publications, and his animations have been shown on Nickelodeon. He teaches illustration at The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He lives in Milwaukee with his wife and two children.

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Andy Chou Musser makes books for kids. He is the author and illustrator of the picture book A Home Under the Stars, co-creator of the picture book Papilio with Ben Clanton and Corey R. Tabor, and co-creator of two series for young readers: Science Explorers with Amy Seto Forrester and Ploof with Ben Clanton. Andy lives in Seattle with his partner and two cats.

Self-Identifiers: Chinese-American; Asian-American; Mixed-Race; POC; AAHIPI 

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Robert Liu-Trujillo is an author and illustrator whose storytelling and vibrant visual art reflect his cultural heritage and dedication to social justice. His work explores themes of identity, history, family, mixed heritage, literacy, and agency. Robert is a life long Bay Area resident. Born in Oakland, California, he’s the child of student activists who watched lots of science fiction and took him to many demonstrations. Always drawing, Rob grew up to be an artist falling in love with graffiti, fine art, illustration, murals, and children’s books. In that order, sort of. Through storytelling he’s been able to scratch the surface of so many untold stories.

Self-Identifiers: African-American; Mexican or Latino; Korean or Asian; Apache or Native-American; Mixed Heritage

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Wook Jin Jung is currently VP, Head of Design at Scholastic Education. He is also game designer, artist, visual strategist and monster maker. He writes and illustrates children’s picture books. Leading the UX design process from initial definition to final implementation.

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Bagram Ibatoulline is an award-winning American illustrator who has illustrated over thirty acclaimed books for children. His books have been published all across the globe and have been translated into dozens of languages. He is celebrated internationally for his best-selling titles like The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

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Connie Hernandez (he/him/his) is a cartoonist and community organizer from Chicago, Illinois. Seeing comics as an opportunity for radical re-imagination of the state of the world, Connie draws from his personal relationships between family and friends, as well as his political experience organizing in Chicago. His current projects are middle grade graphic novels, such as his background illustrations in Johnnie Christmas’ Swim Team, and Connie’s own upcoming debut graphic novel. His dream projects range from silly middle grade books to weird adult fiction, comedy, and horror.

Self-Identifiers: Filipino; Asian; Transgender; Disabled; Fat

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C.G. Esperanza was born the second of six cool kids. The South Bronx is where he first opened his eyelids. A land shrouded in bright colored decay, the birthplace of graffiti and the hip-hop DJ. He paints fantasy worlds of elephants and castles, too. Accompanying this wonder is some whimsical truth. Author and Illustrator of Red, Yellow, Blue and a Dash of White Too! (SkyponyPress), Boogie Boogie, Y’all (HarperCollins), and the upcoming Dragon Mama (HarperCollins). He has also illustrated the picture book, My Daddy is a Cowboy.

Self-Identifiers: Black; African American; Latino; Puerto Rican; LGBTQ+

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During the day, Mike Dutton works in the animation industry. He has served as art director and production designer at Tonko House on the Netflix series, Go! Go! Cory Carson. He was a sets designer on an unannounced feature film at Kuku Studios. Currently he is an art director on a 2D animated feature film at Epipheo.

Self-Identifiers: Asian-American; Multi-Ethnic; Korean

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Ben Clanton is a children’s book author-illustrator best known for the Narwhal and Jelly series. He spends most of his time on this planet reading, drawing, playing basketball, gardening, and eating waffles.

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Derick Brooks (he/him) is an award-winning cartoonist from Virginia. He loves to create genre bending illustration and comic art that mixes adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi themes with a slice of life. His published work can be found in A is for Alfie (Macmillan), Drawn to Change the World (HarperCollins), Hey You (Puffin), The Last Chance for Logan County (Versify), Allies (DK), and ten books from the Bright Family universe (Epic). When he’s not writing, doodling, or stopping his pets from wrestling, he serves as the art director for Magpie Literacy where he assists in the creation of decodable texts for grades PK-8+.

Self-Identifiers: Black; African-American

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Nico Bocalan (or Nico or skelehime) is a horror cartoonist working on her first full-length horror graphic novel. She enjoys horror movies, books, junk food, coding, and biking at a leisurely pace.

Self-Identifiers: Filipino; Queer; Woman

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Gonzalo Alvarez is an illustrator, designer, and author of the Aztec fantasy graphic novel series, Poyoman. A first-generation Chicano from Southeast Texas, he grew up inspired by the folktales and traditions of his Mexican-born parents, but never saw them represented in media. After graduating from Lamar University with a BFA and a self-published comic, he began decolonizing by relearning the Aztec language, culture, and history to authentically bring his stories to life. He and his partner, Grace Chadwick, founded Studio Tecuan, are working together on a Poyoman, Nawalli the Aztec card game, and enjoy binging fantasy movies and RPGs.

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