Page Turner’s Authors and Illustrators
They are literally and Literary the best!
Nadia Ahmed
Nadia Ahmed is an artist who makes dark yet whimsical illustrations. Often only using a black pen, she creates complex worlds that invoke an eerie nostalgia.
Chris Becker
Chris Becker is an elementary school teacher in Westchester, New York. With a passion for engaging students in reading a great book, he has since delved into writing stories himself. He is a strong advocate for diversity in the books he chooses to read to his classes, and in turn writes stories with LGBTQIA+ leads. When he is not teaching or writing, you can catch Chris watching a Disney movie with his rescue pets, or partaking in anything active.
Hazen Becker
Born and raised in Youngstown Ohio, Hazen grew up watching monster movies and reading tons and tons of comic books.
Art and storytelling has always been a driving force in his life. In 2014 he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a bachelors in illustration.
Hazen has since gone on to work on projects with various clients such as Hasbro, Rick and Morty, and Warner Brothers.
Now based in San Diego, he pencils, colors, and letters SPACE CASE as well as operating his own art business.
Cortney Benvenuto
Cortney Benvenuto is an illustrator, artist living in Milwaukie, Oregon. She graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and uses only traditional mediums; pencil, watercolor, and ink. When she’s not illustrating, Cortney is subbing at her children’s school or off on a family adventure.
John Bowen
John Bowen is a picture book writer, theatre aficionado, and baseball fan. To no one’s surprise, he lives in Normal, Illinois.
Kate Bradley-Ferrall
Kate Bradley-Ferrall has spent much of her life telling stories—some true and others from her imagination—as an award-winning television producer, broadcast journalist, news anchor, and failed bedtime enforcer. She’s been a scriptwriter for television shows airing on TLC and the Discovery networks, and her short stories, poems, and flash fiction have appeared in various publications including the Colorado Review, The Fifty-Word Stories of 2021, Sick Lit Magazine, and New Verse News. Her YA and MG novels explore friendships, found families, and firsts. She lives in Northern Virginia, with her wife, their children, and a whole lot of animals.
Briana Caballero
Briana Caballero is a proud Latinx author/illustrator, authortuber, and children's YouTube storyteller. After graduating with a BFA in Strategic & Corporate Communications, Briana started a children's story time YouTube channel—working with authors from around the world in marketing, promoting, and bringing their picture books to life. In addition, she has her own authortube channel where she shares her entire journey toward becoming traditionally published. Briana's stories strive to showcase diverse and marginalized characters with a focus toward empowering children and teens to always be unapologetically themselves. When she's not writing, reading, or editing YouTube videos, she can be found doodling cute things on her iPad and consuming ALL types of British media.
Taylor Carlson
Taylor Carlson is an author/illustrator based in Amea, Iowa. She’s obsessed with graphic novels, Dungeons and Dragons, Finland, and possums (in that order). Carlson’s stories focus on empowering children and teens as they forge their own identities. She loves sci-fi and fantasy romps with characters as lush as the environments they live in. She also serves as an assistant professor at Buena Vista University in Iowa, and is an active member of SCBWI. She lives in Ames with her partner, dog, cats, and a variable number of chickens.
Megan Char
Megan Char is forever a Jersey Girl living in the Peach State. She is a licensed social worker with extensive experience working with children and their families. When not watching sports or daydreaming about travel, she writes stories about teens with coming-of-age themes.
Jennifer Concepcion
Jennifer Concepcion was born in Haiti and raised in northern British Columbia, she now lives in Costa Rica with her partner and three children. She holds a Bachelor's degree in International Studies, and a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education. Jennifer teaches bilingual Kindergarten, and writes for children of all ages. In her “spare time” she can be found building pirate forts at the beach, on a run with Leia and Chewbacca (her dogs), or hammock-swinging under the mango tree, lost in a good book.
Kris Conover
Kris Conover writes picture books, early readers, and graphic novels. She has a degree in Elementary Education. She’s worked in advertising, coordinated conferences for writers, and written a book of advice for adults. But her favorite job title is “Mrs. Cook,” the name given to her by the 500 elementary students who visited her classroom each month to acquire the skills necessary to cook and then eat a variety of multicultural meals. A creator and collector of recipes, Kris loves hosting conversation and laughter-filled dinners with family and friends. Born in Ohio, Kris now lives with her family and rescue animals in New Mexico.
Photo credit: Ceara Janelle
Christina Dendy
Christina Dendy is an American author with a wide range of experience in the K-12 educational market, particularly in the social sciences. She loves just about anything that involves exploration, on or off the printed page, and regularly tumbles down rabbit holes of one sort or another. She is determined to visit the Redwoods and the world's largest organism, armillaria ostoyae, in Oregon in 2022. Christina meanders about Dayton, Ohio, with her tallish hobbit husband, three impish children and a few finicky furry friends. THE WALL AND THE WILD, with Katie Rewse, is her debut picture book.
Jan Dolby
Jan Dolby was born in Newfoundland, raised in many cities in Ontario and now lives in the Toronto area with her family. She is a Fine Arts graduate from The University of Guelph and the illustrator of the Gabby picture book series, Gabby, Gabby: Drama Queen and Gabby: Wonder Girl written by Joyce Grant. Outside of her studio, Jan can be found on the beach shores of Lake Huron. She believes kindness and chocolate can cure anything.
Drew Dorenfest
Drew Dorenfest is a Los Angeles based comic book writer. A lifelong fan of comics, animation, and film, Drew hopes to inspire young readers to find a lifelong love of reading through the medium of comics and graphic novels. Born and raised in Chicago, Drew followed his passion for film to Los Angeles where he works as a film editor for movie & TV trailers. In his free time, he loves spending time with his wife and daughter, discovering new pop culture obsessions, and drinking a ton of coffee.
Nico Ecenarro
Nico Ecenarro is an illustrator based in Rhode Island. He enjoys making stories about silly and adventurous kids using limited color palettes and characters designed with care. Between drawings he's chasing his two kids around the house.
Mike Erskine-Kellie & Susan McLennan
Mike Erskine-Kellie and Susan McLennan are two-time regional Emmy awards winners for their TV series, Scientastic. They have created and/or written television shows for PBS, Disney XD, BBC, TVO, CBC including Franny’s Feet, Ranger Rob, Pucca, Turbo Dogs, 1001 Nights, Endangered Species, the Emmy Award-winning PBS show Zoboomafoo, and the Gemini Nominated CBC show Sketchcom. They co-created, story edited and wrote for the TVO kids’ magic series Spellz, winner of the US International Film and Video Festival in Children’s Programming and a Silver Remi at the Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival. Their first kids’ book, I Got You A Present was published by Kids Can Press in the spring of 2020.
Ariana Ferrante
Ariana Ferrante is an #actuallyautistic college student, playwright, and speculative fiction author. Her main interests include reading and writing fantasy and horror of all kinds, featuring heroes big and small getting into all sorts of trouble. She has been published by Eerie River Publishing and Brigid's Gate Press, among others. On the playwriting side, her works have been featured in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and nominated for national awards. She currently lives in Florida, but travels often, both for college and leisure. You may find her on Twitter at @ariana_ferrante, and on Instagram at @arianaferrantebooks.
Elyssa Gavin
Elyssa Gavin is a picture book author and lover of words, which comes in handy as she teaches English to Speakers of Other Languages. Elyssa teaches middle school students and previously taught in an elementary school, giving her insight into her audience. Elyssa lives in the Kansas City metro with her family, her dog, and a cat named Garbage.
Scott Gleeson
Scott Gleeson is a Chicago-based young adult author who wrote as a journalist for 12 years at USA TODAY newspaper, where he won numerous national writing awards by The Associated Press and NLGJA. Now working as a licensed mental health therapist, a great deal of the character development in Scott's writing derives from real-life trauma and aims to tap into relatable relational struggles for teens. His debut science fiction novel, The Walls of Color, applies his psychology background, with the concepts of the inner child and shadow self driving the book in disguise. The Walls of Color is the first book of a series that can be best described as Across the Universe meets The Giver in a dystopian world that rivals the Hunger Games or Divergent series. When Scott's not near a keyboard, he's likely training for a marathon or volunteer coaching for Chicago Public Schools. His personal passion is his family, namely his little brother, Micah, and dog, Miles.
Andrew Hacket
Andrew Hacket is a writer, second-grade teacher, and father of three. He is also the author of the upcoming Ollie, the Acorn, and the Mighty Idea, Curlilocks and the Three Hares, and Hope and the Sea. Andrew recognizes that being a kid is hard and he writes to create ways for kids to see themselves in stories and characters, to accept and overcome their insecurities, or to escape for just a little while through the power of their imaginations.
Gene Magora
Gene Magora is a graphic novel artist and a Cartoonist working on visual development and background designs for animation tv series and feature films. When Gene is not doing work, he spends his time with his 2 kids and watches a lot of movies to further develop his creative bank and gather inspiration. He also enjoys running and biking.
CK Malone
CK Malone identifies as bigender. They are the 6-8 literacy coach and love every second of it. When they aren’t grading gazillions of essays, CK works as an advisor, a district liaison, and an equity trainer for the Genders and Sexualities Alliances (GSA) national group. At the end of the school day, they adore relaxing with their best friend for life and a dog who thinks he’s a lion.
Michele McAvoy
Michele McAvoy is a multi-award-winning children’s book author, book publisher, educator, attorney, and mom from New Jersey. As a child, she read Judy Blume and drew Garfield comics. For her 10th birthday, she asked for a pink typewriter. Michele always loved the smell of new books. Now all grown-up (typewriters near obsolete) she loves bringing joy to children through her own stories. Michele writes for the very young to the very young at heart, from picture books through young adult. Michele’s books are available everywhere books are sold. Find Michele on social media @michele_mcavoy (X) and @michelemcavoy (Instagram.) www.michelemcavoy.com.
Andrew Mersmann
Andrew Mersmann has volunteered around the world, is the award-winning author of the global guidebook “500 Places Where You Can Make a Difference,” and has written for many years about being of service to others.
Andrew wrote the fire safety puppet show “Lucky the Fire-Burping Dragon” for children’s museums of California and he has been featured on TV, podcasts, and print media such as Oprah and Friends, NY1, Forbes, New York Times, 92nd Street Y, Marie Claire, and more.
Leah Moser
Leah Moser is a picture book author living outside Washington, DC. As an elementary school educator and parent of three, Leah writes stories focusing on social-emotional learning, STEM, humor, and anything that her own kids would love to read.
Justin Olson
Born and raised in Butte, Montana, Justin Olson is a novelist and independent film and TV producer. His debut novel Earth to Charlie, edited by David Gale, came out from Simon & Schuster in 2019. Earth to Charlie was setup as a feature film with Awesomeness Films/Viacom. He taught high school English and theater in Helena, Montana for four years before getting his second master's degree at UCLA. Justin lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with his boyfriend and cat.
Oliver O’Ryan
Oliver O'Ryan (he/they) is an author, music industry worker, and college student from Buffalo, NY. Oliver specifically focuses on LGBTQ+ themes and marginalized communities in Young Adult fiction. He believes in giving today's youth more representation than he had in books growing up. As a queer trans man, Oliver uses his lived experience as inspiration for his novels. When not writing, Oliver can be found at a concert, hanging out with friends, and watching trivia shows with his Mom & sister, Sarah.
Melody Plan
Melody Plan spends her adult life making her 6-year-old self’s dreams come true. As a child she loved animals, the environment, dancing, and writing. As an adult Melody became a zookeeper, a Master Composter through Solana Center of Environmental Innovation, a professional Polynesian dancer, and a writer for tech. She still writes for tech, but now she writes children’s stories too. She wrote her first book as a kindergarten assignment, and it was about keeping a menagerie of animals. Today she lives in San Diego with her partner and seven chickens, two shrimp, a rescued scorpion, and thousands of vermicompost worms.
Margo Sorenson
Margo Sorenson is a California Teacher of the Year/ Milken National Educator Award winner. She is the author of 30 traditionally-published books for young readers. Her most recent publications are Secrets in Translation (Fitzroy Books, 2018), Little Calabash (Island Heritage, 2020), and Calvin Gets the Last Word (Tilbury House, October 2020). Calvin Gets the Last Word was featured in the New York Times as one of the best 8 books about books for children in the Fall of 2020. Little Calabash was recently put on SCBWI’s reading list to celebrate Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Heritage month.
Daniel Sulzberg
Daniel Sulzberg is a Santa Barbara based award winning illustrator and writer that specializes in whimsical, colorful, and detailed illustrations that are a perfect match for his imaginative storytelling. In the past, Daniel has worked as a staff writer for the CW’s Smallville, and has created an animated series for Dreamworks Animation. Daniel is a graduate of UCLA’s design program and a committed member of the Society of Illustrators, SCWBI, and the WGA. He has worked with clients such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Major League Soccer, Nike and Red Bull. Outside of his creative work, Daniel is a vinyl collecting mocha-maestro, and a soccer-loving Dad to two feisty toddlers.
Aleksandra Szmidt
Aleksandra Szmidt is an illustrator who has traveled from the landscapes of southern Poland to the shores of New Zealand. Having illustrated over 40 books, she has recently returned to traditional tools like paint and crayons, giving a fresh twist to her style. Her art combines magic and humor, aiming to spark wonder and curiosity. From her beachside studio, she finds creativity in autumn’s colors and the playful chaos of her desk.
Edd Tello
Edson "Edd Tello" is a bilingual writer of children's and YA literature. He has worked as an English teacher in elementary schools in Mexico. He's the author of the young adult novels Only Pieces and No Place for Fairy Tales (Both are Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections). Edd holds a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Seville.
Taylor Woolley
Taylor Ackerman is a children's author and illustrator living in Atlanta, Georgia. She also works as a graphic designer specializing in marketing and communication for higher education. She has a soft spot for stories that mix humor with a little bit of heart. Taylor is an active member of SCBWI and Julie Hedlund’s 12x12 Picture Book Challenge. She was a 2022 PBParty finalist and has received numerous recognitions for her illustrations through SCBWI. Taylor once bought a small tortoise from a stranger at a gas station in rural Illinois. That tortoise is now the size of a dinner plate and still growing.