Upcoming

Paola Escobar

Paola Escobar is a a graphic designer and illustrator from Colombia. As a child she loved drawing the stories told by her grandmother about their family and culture and it was her dream to become an illustrator for children’s books. She is the illustrator of the award-winning picture book ‘Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré’ published with Harper Collins US, as well as many other critically-acclaimed picture books. She has worked with publishers across the world and is proud to have illustrated stories that celebrate cultural diversity and champion unsung heroes. Paola lives very happily in Bogotá, Colombia, with her husband and their dog, Flora.

Her clients include Chicken House, Oxford University Press, Laurence King, Lerner Publishing, Faber & Faber, Hachette, Walker Books, Literati, Little Bee Books, Little Brown, Harper Collins UK and US, Penguin Random House UK and US, Simon & Schuster US, Schwartz and Wade, and Disney.

Rebecca Lee Kunz

Rebecca Lee Kunz grew up in Oklahoma and is a multi-media artist and the owner of Tree of Life Studio, and the 2025 Caldecott Award winner. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation and of European descent, Rebecca earned a BFA in painting from the College of Santa Fe in 1998 and now lives in the foothills of Santa Fe County with her husband and three daughters.

Rebecca works at the intersection of climate justice and cultural awareness. Within her layered surfaces, she draws upon tribal mythology and archetypal symbolism. She infuses Cherokee mythology into her work where she is in conversation with each folk tale as a living and ever-changing story. As these myths are woven into each of her pieces, they serve as hard-working and flourishing historical narratives. A visual storyteller, animist, and folklorist, she hopes to illuminate awareness about our shifting cultural climate and to inspire solutions to the social and environmental issues of today. Rebecca likes to push back against sentimental chronicles, and her goal is to spark a contemporary conversation about active myth.

Juana Martinez-Neal

Juana Martinez-Neal writes and illustrates books for young readers. Alma and How She Got Her Name (Candlewick Press) was her debut picture book as an author-illustrator, and was awarded the 2019 Caldecott Honor. She is also the illustrator of La Princesa and the Pea (written by Susan M. Elya, Putnam/Penguin), winner of the 2018 Pura Belpré Medal for Illustration, and Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story (written by Kevin Noble Maillard, Roaring Brook Press), winner of the 2020 Robert F. Sibert Medal.

Juana was born in the busy city of Lima, the capital of Peru. Now she lives in the woods in Eastern Connecticut. Here she shares a home with her husband, two sons, daughter, their two dogs, and the souls of their late cat, Kitty, and ginormous dog, Puppy.

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C.G. Esperanza

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. Charles has a voice that is seldom heard. A fusion of jazz, distorted guitars, and chirping birds.

Author and Illustrator of “Boogie Boogie, Y’all” (Harper Collins), “Kicks in the Sky” (Harper Collins), and “Red Yellow Blue” (SkyHorse); and illustrator of “Soul Food Sunday” (Abrams), “My Daddy is a Cowboy” (Abrams), and “Fish Fry Friday” (Abrams).

Christian Robinson

Christian Robinson is an American illustrator of children’s books and an animator. He is based in Sacramento, California, and has worked with The Sesame Street Workshop and Pixar Animation Studios. He graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. Robinson grew up in Los Angeles, California, and he began his career in animation until a mentor, Ben Butcher, inspired his shift toward children’s books.  He lived for seven years in San Francisco before relocating to Sacramento.

His illustrative works for children’s books has won many awards, including in 2021, he published, alongside author, Matt de la Peña, Milo Imagines the World. His “colorful collage” art helped the book become a 2022 Bank Street Children’s Best Books of the Year List with an “Outstanding Merit” distinction and shared the Committee’s Josette Frank Award with Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter. Other awards include a Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor in 2016 for Last Stop on Market Street.

Loveis Wise

Loveis Wise is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, creative director, and Capricorn drawing reimagined futures and playfulness in Los Angeles. They are best known for illustrating picture book titles such as Magnolia Flower by Zora Neale Hurston and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Ablaze With Color: A Story of Painter Alma Thomas by Jeanne Walker Harvey, Becoming Charley by Kelly DiPucchio, and notably the Coretta Scott King Award honoree, The People Remember by Ibi Zoboi.

Jarrett Pumphrey

Jarrett is an award-winning author and illustrator. He makes books for kids with his brother, Jerome. Their books include the Caldecott Honor-winning There Was a Party for Langston written by Jason Reynolds; The Last Stand written by Antwan Eady; It’s a Sign!, an Elephant & Piggie Like Reading book; Somewhere in the Bayou, a Texas 2×2 List Selection; and their author-illustrator debut, The Old Truck, which received seven starred reviews, was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and received the Ezra Jack Keats New Author Honor. Jarrett spends his time making books in his home near Austin, TX, where he lives with his wife, their two boys, a dog named Whiskey, and another dog named Ford. When he’s not making books, you might find him fishing on a river somewhere or tinkering under the hood of his new old F100.

Jerome Pumphrey

Jerome is a designer, illustrator, and writer, originally from Houston, TX. He studied graphic design at the Art Institute of Austin and has worked as a technical writer, freelance graphic designer, and illustrator. Since 2016 he has been a graphic designer at The Walt Disney Company where he uses design and illustration to visually tell stories in print, digital, and immersive experiences for Disney global business development. He works primarily from his home office in Georgetown, TX, where he lives with his wife and their three kids. Jerome is a member of the SCBWI and shares a previous author credit with Jarrett for Creepy Things Are Scaring Me (HarperCollins, 2003), which they wrote as teenagers.

Hannah Cha

Hanna Cha is a Caldecott Honor award-winning illustrator and writer with several books under her belt. She is the creator of her first book Tiny Feet Between the Mountains and illustrated Circle Round by Anne Sibley O’Brien. She was also the recipient of the Caldecott Honor and the APALA winner for The Truth about Dragons by Julie Leung and also part of the Junior Library Gold Standard Selection for The House Before Falling Into the Sea by Ann Suk Wang.

Born in America and a vagabond she lived in tandem between Seoul, Korea, and many states in America. Since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2017, she resided in Boston with her husband, and her tiger-like cuddly cat, Hobac. When she isn’t daydreaming and capturing moments with her soft washes, she is pointing and filing away at lil’ nooks of details to later conjure them into a daydream and inevitably a story.

Juana Martinez-Neal

I’m Juana and I write and illustrate books for young readers.

Alma and How She Got Her Name (Candlewick Press) was my debut picture book as an author-illustrator, and was awarded the 2019 Caldecott Honor. I am also the illustrator of La Princesa and the Pea (written by Susan M. Elya, Putnam/Penguin), winner of the 2018 Pura Belpré Medal for Illustration, and Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story (written by Kevin Noble Maillard, Roaring Brook Press), winner of the 2020 Robert F. Sibert Medal.

I was born in the busy city of Lima, the capital of Peru. Now I live in the woods in Eastern Connecticut. Here I share a home with my husband, two sons, daughter, our two dogs, and the souls of our late cat, Kitty, and ginormous dog, Puppy.

Nací y crecí en Lima, y soy bilingüe. No duden en escribirme en español.

Vashti Harrison

Vashti Harrison is the New York Times bestselling creator of Big, which was awarded the 2024 Caldecott Medal, a Coretta Scott King Book Award Author Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Book Award Illustrator Honor, in addition to being a National Book Award finalist. Vashti is also the #1 New York Times bestselling creator of Little Leaders, Little Dreamers, and Little Legends, and the illustrator of Lupita Nyong’o’s Sulwe (for which she received a Coretta Scott King Book Award Illustrator Honor), Matthew A. Cherry’s Hair Love, Andrea Beaty’s I Love You Like Yellow, and Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic’s Hello, Star, among others. A two-time recipient of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Children, Vashti lives in Brooklyn, New York.