Bonnie Bader is the Editorial Director of Grosset & Dunlap and Price Stern Sloan, two imprints of the Penguin Young Readers Group. She acquires original fiction, from early chapter books, to middle grade, and YA series. She edits many best-selling series including Hank Zipzer by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver, Dish by Diane Muldrow, and the newly published The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff. Other series published by her group are Dragon Slayer's Academy, The Zack Files, Katie Kazoo, and Camp Confidential.

Stacy Cantor has been an editor at Bloomsbury Children's Books since 2005, previously working as a writer for a book packager in Chicago, Illinois. Cantor's interests lie primarily in literary young adult fiction and vibrant read-aloud picture books. Her favorite projects thus far have been two picture books called How to Be a Good Dog and Bear's Day Out, a forthcoming novel called Dragon Slippers, and a Choose Your Own Adventure-style series for tween girls called Date Him or Dump Him. Cantor also spent a summer as an intern for Viking Children's Books, where she honed her skills reading the slush pile.

Kristin Daly, an Editor at HarperCollins Children's Books, first became interested in children's books as a career in high school, when she worked in her local public library shelving and often covertly reading books in the children's room. In May 1999 she was hired as an Editorial Assistant at Golden Books, where she worked on picture books, series fiction, and the Road to Reading line. In January 2002, she began working at HarperCollins, where she has been for the past five years and counting. Daly has been privileged to work with authors and illustrators such as Gary Blackwood, Valeri Gorbachev, Charles Santore, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Jack Prelutsky, Suzy Becker, and Barbara McClintock. Currently, she is especially excited to be working with two talented newcomers and SCBWI members: Sudipta Bardhan, on the picture books Snoring Beauty and Hampire!, and Audrey Vernick on the picture book biography She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story. Daly edits a range of children's titles, from picture books and easy-to-reads through middle-grade, and recently signed up her first two YA novels, by new author Melissa Francis.

Acclaimed artist David Diaz received the 1995 Randolph Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in Eve Bunting's Smoky Night. Diaz created the collage backgrounds for Smoky Night from diverse materials such as small pieces of cloth, matches, corrugated cardboard, even fragments of his own pottery. His bold, stylized work also appears in The Inner City Mother Goose, Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman, Going Home, and The Pot that Juan Built.

Lee Bennett Hopkins has written and edited numerous award-winning books for children and young adults, as well as professional texts and curriculum materials. He has taught in schools and has lectured, and served as a consultant to school systems throughout the country. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Hopkins is a graduate of Kean College and the Bank Street College of Education, and holds a Professional Diploma in Educational Supervision and Administration from Hunter College. In 1980 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Kean College; in 1989 he received the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion for "outstanding contributions to the field of children's literature" in recognition of his work. His creativity is the result of his passion for poetry and his unflagging belief that poetry is a necessity for children, at home and in the classroom.

At the heart of all his writing is the dedication to bring children and books together. "You must teach children to love books," he insists. "We spend too much time teaching children to read and not enough time teaching them to love to read."

Helen Ketteman is the author of 18 picture books and numerous other stories and articles. Many of her books have won awards, including the Flicker Tale Award, the Patricia Gallagher award, the Nebraska Children's Choice Picture Book award, Cat Writer's Assoc. Best Book of the year, several ALA "Pick of the Lists," Junior Library Guild selections, NCAA ­ CBC Honor Books, Selector's Choice, NY Public Library's Best Picture Books of the Year Award, Texas 2X2 Reading list, and several others. Her books have been named to many state Reader's Choice Awards lists throughout the United States, and one book, Bubba the Cowboy Prince, has been turned into a musical play for children's theatre. Additionally, Grandma's Cat was featured on PBS' Storytime.

Ketteman studied English in college and taught both at the high school and elementary levels. She has also taught picture book writing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and has done a week-long picture book writing workshop at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT.

Janeen Mason is wild about the ocean and all who live in it, and her magical paintings can be found on products printed and sold around the world from children's books to clay tiles, from puzzles to note cards. Her original paintings hang in the collections of Burt Reynolds, Reba MacEntire, S. Kent Rockwell, and Evan Lloyd, to name a few. Mason has been a curator, juror, and board member at the Arts Council of Stuart and Martin County, Florida. She serves on two committees that commission artists to create work for public buildings. In 2000 she received the National Award for Excellence in Communities for "Art of the Picture Book," an interactive exhibit she curated which featured the work of thirteen award winning children's picture book illustrators. Mason is an animated speaker at conferences, schools and libraries, and a popular guest on public radio and television.

Diane Muldrow has worked in publishing for nearly 20 years. She is currently the Editorial Director of Golden Books at Random House. She has also worked at Scholastic as an editor for the Cartwheel Books imprint, and spent a year as a freelance writer. Muldrow has written books for toddlers through middle graders. Her middle-grade series, Dish, has just been reissued by Grosset & Dunlap. In Spring, 2008, Random House will publish Mama, Where Are You? her novelty book for preschoolers.

Catherine Onder is an Editor at HarperCollins Children's Books. While spending quality time working on all things Narnia, she also develops picture books, chapter books, middle grade fiction, and YA novels. Whether funny and light or dark and mysterious, traditional or edgy, she looks for strong narrative and voice, and a clear vision in all manuscripts. Authors and artists she has worked with include Matthew S. Armstrong, Karen Barbour, Ann Cannon, Alex Flinn, Katherine Langrish, Geraldine McCaughrean, Jeremy Strong, and Terry Trueman.

Joyce Sweeney is the author of thirteen novels for young adults. Her novel Players was chosen as a Top Ten Sports Book by Booklist and a Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers by the American Library Association. Her most recent novel, Headlock, won a silver medal from the Florida Book Awards. In addition, Sweeney leads two writer's workshops in South Florida which so far have produced 21 published authors.