Ronnie Vazquez (they/them) is a southern-raised queer Puerto Rican illustrator and comic artist with a background in visual development. Their work has been featured in several indie anthologies, including the Eisner-winning anthology, Puerto Rico Strong. Their graphic novel debut, Saving Chupie, is a Louisiana Reader’s Choice and CYBILS award nominee, and has been featured in the Texas Maverick, New York Public Library, and IndieBound reading lists.

Self-Identifiers: Puerto Rican; Latin; Queer; Neurodivergent

 Download Spotlight

Kelly and Nichole Matthews are a twin art team making a living in the Emerald City. They have brought to life many stories and worlds, including a magic treehouse, a little mermaid under the sea, the world of Thra, a young boy lost in time, and many more.

---

Download Spotlight

Brenna Burns Yu (she/they) is the author and illustrator of two Hazel and Twig books published by Candlewick Press. Brenna has an MFA from the Fiber Department of Cranbrook Academy of Art, and their artistic practice continues to be shaped by their love of fabric, paper, and patterns. Brenna works ink, pencil, watercolor, and gouache, and they love to see visible traces of the art-making process in their finished work. Brenna also brings their love for nature and early scientific exploration to libraries, leading art activities based on the Hazel and Twig books.

Self-Identifiers: Non-binary; LGBTQIA + Family

---

Download Spotlight

Ashley Wong is a freelance illustrator and designer based in Hamilton, Ontario. She works with embroidery floss (and sometimes ink and paint, too!) to create warm and fuzzy images. Her work draws inspiration from delicious meals with loved ones and the changing of seasons.

Self-Identifiers: Chinese-Canadian; Bisexual

---

Download Spotlight

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+

---

Download Spotlight

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

---

Download Spotlight

An old vagabond that loves a good story, Morgan Thompson is a Cherokee artist that loves telling stories. She is Keetoowah Cherokee with membership in Cherokee Nation and comes from the Cherokee Nation Reservation in Northeastern Oklahoma. When not drawing, you can find her writing, and when she isn’t writing you can find her beading. She has a deep love for her Cherokee community and telling Indigenous stories to a wider audience.

Self-Identifiers: Indigenous; Native American; Cherokee; First American

---

Download Spotlight

Jennifer Thermes is an award-winning children’s book author-illustrator and map illustrator. Her nonfiction picture book The Indestructible Tom Crean recently received the Bank Street College of Education’s 2024 Flora Stieglitz Straus Award in the Younger Reader category and is an ALSC Notable Children’s Book. Both Tom Crean and her book A Place Called America were named to the Kirkus Best Picture Books of 2023 list. Jennifer is fascinated by big-picture ideas that span history, adventure, and the natural world, and weaves maps throughout her stories to explore new places and visualize how the past connects to our lives today.

---

Download Spotlight

Danie Stirling is the creator of webcomic-turned-graphic novel Crumbs (Clarion Books) and the upcoming graphic novel, Trove (Clarion Books). Based in Atlantic Canada, they check the weather forecast far too often for someone whose plans typically consist of staying inside to read a stack of manga.

---

Download Spotlight

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.

---

Download Spotlight

Elizabeth Schoonmaker is an artist, illustrator, writer, designer and picture book author of Square Cat and Square Cat ABC. Elizabeth’s work is community based with roadside attractions, nursing home portraits, oral interviews, and interactive sculptures. Elizabeth lives in the Town of Plainfield, in Upstate New York.

---

Download Spotlight

Amy Schimler-Safford has had an impressive career as a textile designer and children’s illustrator for over two decades. Her children’s book illustrations have been well reviewed and award-winning. In 2010 “Why is the Sky Blue?” was paired with an Eric Carle title for Booktrust.org’s book bag program. Over 700,00 book bags were distributed to first year students throughout the UK. Some very generous words used to describe her work: “glimmering”, “lavish”, “vibrant”, “gorgeous”, “magical”, “lush”, “amazing”, “breathtaking”, “gloriously colorful”, “dreamlike”, “luminous”, “dynamic”, “engaging’, “skillful”, “alluring” and a “celebration of observation”.

---

Download Spotlight

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 

---

Download Spotlight

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

---

Download Spotlight

Ariel Slamet Ries is the Ignatz-award winning cartoonist and author of graphic novels Witchy and Cry Wolf Girl. They’re interested in using a fantastical lens to examine the mundane, and curating empathy for flawed characters. Their debut graphic novel with HarperCollins, Strange Bedfellows—a queer YA sci-fi romance about a boy who develops the ability to manifest his dreams in real life, including his infuriatingly attractive high school crush—is set for release in March of 2025.

Self-Identifiers: South East Asian; Mixed race (Asian/White); Queer; Trans; Neurodivergent; Non-Binary 

---

Download Spotlight

Jennifer Black Reinhardt is the author and illustrator of several acclaimed books for children, including Always by My Side: A Stuffie Story, Playing Possum, and Blue Ethel. She illustrated Gondra’s Treasure and Yaks Yak, both written by Newbery award winner Linda Sue Park, as well as illustrating Sometimes You Fly by Newbery Medalist Katherine Applegate, to name a few. Her books have received many starred reviews and been selected for recommended lists. Jennifer joyfully creates picture books from her comfortably cluttered studio in her Iowa City, Iowa home.

Self-Identifiers: Woman

---

Download Spotlight

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.

---

Download Spotlight

Daria Peoples earned a BA in English at UC Santa Barbara, California, where she found herself shelving books at the library and reading many notable writers. Daria’s debut picture book, This is It was published by Greenwillow/HarperCollins in 2018, she has then illustrated many other children’s books, which can be found on her website.

Self-Identifiers: Black; Cuban; Female

---

Download Spotlight

K. O’Neill (they/them) is a self-taught writer and illustrator based in New Zealand. She is interested in nature and all kinds of creatures, mindfulness and mental health, and the magic of everyday life. To date, she has published three books, which have won Eisner, Harvey, and Dwayne McDuffie awards for children’s comics, as well as being Cybils Award finalists, and featured on the ALA Rainbow List.

---

Download Spotlight

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 

---

Download Spotlight

Hillary Moore is an artist and illustrator whose artwork is inspired by whimsical elements of nature and the wonder of a child’s perspective. Working in watercolor and gouache, she enjoys playing with layered realities and scale. Her imagery often features characters who are exploring and finding joy in the world around them. Hillary lives in Seattle, Washington where she has plenty of chances to explore mountains, tide pools, and rainforests and gather inspiration from her own two kids who are wildly imaginative.

Self-Identifiers: Mixed Race; Asian-American; Femme; Parent

---

Download Spotlight

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.

---

Download Spotlight

Ying-Hwa Hu is an educator, picture book author, and illustrator. She has worked solo as well as collaborated with her husband, Cornelius Van Wright, for over 50 books. Her debut author/illustrator book Ten Blocks To the Big Wok was selected as Best Books for NYPL, CPL, Bank Street Books, and won Delaware Library Association Blue Hen Book Award, and the Mathical Books Honor Award. Ying-Hwa teaches at Fred Dolan Art Academy and helps young artists in the Bronx community to enter art colleges. Her students have attended and graduated from many top art colleges in the country. Ying-Hwa lives with her husband in New York City.

Self-Identifiers: AAPI

---

Download Spotlight

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

---

Download Spotlight

Paige Hender is responsible for upcoming graphic novels from Silver Sprocket and Henry Holt Books for Young Readers. With toes in both the adult and young adult markets, she seeks to bring mature stories to young readers and whimsical tales to grown-ups. Hopefully her corrupting influence will inspire a generation of horror fans. Hender was born in Ottawa, Ontario and currently resides in Louisiana.

---

Download Spotlight

Kayla Harren graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City with a BFA in illustration. She has illustrated Calvin, winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary Award; A Boy Like You, winner of the 2019 EUREKA Gold Award; The Boy Who Grew a Forest, winner of the 2020 Crystal Kite Award; and Thursday, featured in the Society of Illustrators Original Art Show.

---

Download Spotlight

Shelley Hanmo is a concert pianist, self-taught illustrator, and storyteller. As someone who is passionate about the paper art medium, Shelley loves exploring different possibilities of colors, shapes, layers, and textures in pieces of paper. Shelley’s artistic inspirations often come from her life experience as a woman of color, immigrant, professional musician, as well as her love for nature and conservation. In addition, Shelley is actively teaching paper art workshops across the US, recent workshops including at Brooklyn Art Library, Indianapolis Zoo, Indianapolis Public Library, Lotus World Music & Arts Festival, and Garfield Park Arts Center.

Self-Identifiers: Immigrant; Asian; East Asian; BIPOC; Minority

---

Download Spotlight

Melissa Gardner is an adolescent psychotherapist turned author/illustrator who now lives in the rainy forest outside Eugene, Oregon. Her style is a blend of traditional and digital media, with a focus on natural beauty, tender emotions, and a dash of magic. When she’s not drawing, she’s often snuggling with her three dogs, hanging out with her family, or coming up with recipes that remind her of childhood.

Self-Identifiers: Neurodivergent; LGBTQIA+

---

Download Spotlight

Kat Fajardo (they/she) is a Honduran Colombian award-winning cartoonist and illustrator from the lively and magical place of Loisaida, New York City. They are the creator of Miss Quinces, which was a National Indie Bestseller, received a Pura Belpré Honor for illustration, two starred reviews, and was selected as a summer reading pick by Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Self-Identifiers: Latine; Latinx; Honduran; Colombian; Queer

---

Download Spotlight

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+

---

Download Spotlight

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

---

Download Spotlight

Lauren Dimaya is a tiny, queer Filipino-American illustrator with a big heart for magical stories. She has drawn for Studio Drydock’s Wylde Flowers, produced an online course on visual storytelling, and is currently illustrating Remy Lai’s YA graphic novel, The Demon’s Prince. Inspired by her heritage and its mythology, Lauren’s dream is to bring relatable queer Filipino narratives into the graphic novel world. Outside of drawing, she can be found in NYC museum-hopping or nervously roller skating.

Self-Identifiers: Filipino; Asian-American; Pacific Islander; Queer; LGBTQIA+

---

Download Spotlight

Sarah Davis is an award-winning illustrator, concept artist, and book designer working in publishing, film, and animation. She has illustrated more than 50 books and has 4+ years experience working in-house as Associate Art Director at Walker Books Australia, where she had the privilege of collaborating with some of Australia’s finest picture-book authors and illustrators. Her own illustration work is fueled by a restless creativity and inspired by a love of literature and narrative. With each project she experiments with new ways to tell visual tales, working across an eclectic range of media – paint, ink, pencil, collage, photography, and digital 3D sculpture.

---

Download Spotlight

Pat Cummings is the author and/or illustrator of over 40 books. Pat’s children’s book courses at Pratt Institute and Parsons boast a growing number of award-winning children’s book creators. Pat serves on the Advisory Council of SCBWI, the Boards of the Authors Guild, the Authors League Fund, the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, and as Chair of the Founders Award Jury for the Society of Illustrators’ annual Original Art Show. Her latest books include her debut middle grade novel, Trace, from HarperCollins and Where is Mommy?, a picture book from Holiday House.

Self-Identifiers: International; African-American; Multi-cultural; Female; New York

---

Download Spotlight

Nina Crews is an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator of picture books for children from Pre-K through 3rd grade. Her titles include One Hot Summer Day, I’m Not Small, Not Done Yet: Shirley Chisholm’s Fight for Change, A Girl Like Me, The Neighborhood Mother Goose, Seeing into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright, and Extraordinary Magic: The Storytelling Life of Virginia Hamilton. While she is known for her distinctive photo collage style, Nina has put her camera aside to create digitally rendered and collaged illustrations in her latest projects. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.

Self-Identifiers: African-American

---

Download Spotlight

Sage Coffey is a trans non-binary cartoonist living in Chicago, Illinois, who is best known as the creator of Wine Ghost, for their work on the GLAAD award nominated video game BUGSNAX, and as the illustrator on one of Vulture’s funniest books of 2021, I Am Not a Wolf. Since 2016, they’ve edited the Ignatz award nominated anthology Sweaty Palms, a comic anthology about anxiety and have helped organize Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) since 2019. Clients include: Design Museum of Chicago Millie Magazine, We Testify, Cards Against Humanity, The American Independent, and more.

Self-Identifiers: Trans; Nonbinary; LGBTQIA+

---

Download Spotlight

Alice Chu is an illustrator, cartoonist, and creator of the all-ages webcomic series, Kiri. She also writes semi-autobiographical comics as @comicsbyalice. In her free time, she enjoys crafting, watching wholesome British reality shows, and gardening very badly.

Self-Identifiers: Asian-American; Taiwanese

---

Download Spotlight

Jade Zhang is a queer Chinese-Canadian illustrator and comic artist based in Toronto. She tells stories about magic, memory, and the occasional eldritch horror. Jade is the illustrator for Ghost Circus (2025) and author of “How to Survive a Haunting,” a horror short about a family that becomes its own monsters published with the Ignatz award-winning Shades of Fear anthology. She also wrote “I’m Stuck in Retrograde,” an autobiographical fabulism comic about a staircase that brings a traveller’s memories to life around them.

Self-Identifiers: Queer; First Generation Chinese-Canadian

---

Download Spotlight

Alina Chau 周曉芬 is an accomplished author and illustrator who has made significant contributions to the animation and gaming industries. Her debut graphic novel, Marshmallow and Jordan, won multiple awards, including the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Award and the Sakura Medal for Best Middle-Grade Graphic Novel in Japan in 2023. Her other highly acclaimed children’s picture books include The Rise (And Falls) of Jackie Chan, Lunar New Year, In the Spirit of a Dream, and the APALA Picture Book Honor, The Nian Monster. Alina’s work is inspirational and imaginative, a testament to the power of creativity and the importance of embracing diverse perspectives.

Self-Identifiers: First-Generation Asian-American; Indonesian-Chinese; Chinese; Multicultural; International

---

Download Spotlight

Léa Charbonnier is a French illustrator based in Berlin. She began her career in graphic design before succumbing to her love of books, graphic novels, and stories, and transitioning full-time into literary illustration. After illustrating over 15 book covers, small comics, and other marketing pieces for authors and companies such as Alison Cochrun, Adam Sass, Justine Pucella Winans, T.J. Klune for Edition Bookmarks, and more, she’s decided to work on THEY NEED A VILLAIN, her first full-length graphic novel.

Self-Identifiers: LGBTQIA+

---

Download Spotlight

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

---

Download Spotlight

Brooke Boynton-Hughes is the illustrator and author of Brave Molly and Heart String and the illustrator of several other books for children including Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton, His Fairy Tale Life by Jane Yolen, Henry Wants More! by Linda Ashman, and Where’s My Turtle? by Barbara Bottner. Brooke is the recipient of two portfolio honor awards from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, as well as the recipient of the SCBWI Don Freeman Memorial grant and the SCBWI Mentorship Award. Brooke lives in Colorado with her husband and three children and creates her illustrations using watercolor, pen and ink, graphite, and colored pencil.

---

Download Spotlight

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

---

Download Spotlight

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.

---

Download Spotlight