KENT L. BROWN JR.
Kent is the executive director of the Highlights Foundation, Inc. He is editor in chief emeritus of Highlights for Children, Inc., and the former publisher of Boyds Mills Press, the trade division of Highlights which he co founded in 1990. He serves Highlights for Children, Inc. as a director. A past president of the Educational Press Association of America, Kent has served on the publications committee of the International Reading Association and is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Society of Magazine Editors, and the National Press Club.

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CHRISTINE FRENCH CLARK
Chris is the editor in chief of Highlights and Highlights High Five, responsible for the magazines in all their formats, including HighlightsKids.com, an award-winning Web site for kids. Her twenty-plus-year career in children’s publishing includes stints as editor of Humpty Dumpty’s Magazine, Turtle, Jack and Jill, and Children’s Digest. She has also written more than one hundred stories, poems, and lesson segments.

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CANDACE FLEMING
Candace is an award-winning author of numerous books for children. She discovered the joy and music of children’s books by reading aloud to her two sons. Her award winners include Ben Franklin's Almanac, an ALA Notable Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; Our Eleanor, a 2005 School Library Journal Best Book; Boxes for Katje, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year 2003; as well as Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!; Gabriella's Song; and When Agnes Caws—all ALA Notable Books.

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BERNETTE FORD
Bernette founded Color-Bridge Books, LLC, an independent packaging and consulting company, in January 2003, to package a wide range of children’s books, including board books and novelty books, picture books, easy readers, and first chapter books, for publishers to the trade and supplementary school markets. Prior to 2003, Bernette was a vice president at Scholastic Inc., where she served as editorial director of Cartwheel Books (the preschool imprint she founded at Scholastic) for nearly thirteen years. She also served as vice president/associate publisher at Grosset & Dunlap/The Putnam Publishing Group, the first African American to be named a vice president at a major children’s book publishing house; as editorial director at Golden Press/Western Publishing Company; and in various editorial positions at Random House Books for Young Readers, where she began her career in 1972.

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PATRICIA LEE GAUCH
Patti is vice president and editor at large of Philomel Books, as well as a respected author in her own right. She holds a doctorate in English literature and has taught children’s literature on the college level and reviewed for the New York Times. Patti has edited three Caldecott books, including Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and John Schoenherr and So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George and David Small. She has worked with many well-known authors, including Patricia Polacco, Andrew Clements, and Loren Long.

Patti has written thirty-nine books for young readers, among them the highly acclaimed Thunder at Gettysburg; This Time, Tempe Wick?; and Christina Katerina and the Box. Her most recent title, The Knitting of Elizabeth Amelia, will be published in fall 2009.

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KIM T. GRISWELL
Kim’s experience in the field of children’s literature has spanned both the worlds of publishing and teaching, leading her to positions as coordinating editor of Highlights magazine, senior editor of Bookbag magazine, a book development manager for The Mailbox Book Company, a university instructor, and a teacher with the Institute of Children’s Literature. She holds master’s degrees in teaching writing and in literature. She has taught writing workshops across the country on such topics as Focusing Nonfiction, Mystery Writing, Creating a Sense of Place, Writing for Children’s Magazines, and The Hero’s Journey. A prolific writer and committed editor, Kim has published more than two hundred short stories, articles, and columns. Her children’s book, Carnivorous Plants, was published by Kidhaven Press in 2002. Recently, Kim spent two months as writer-in-residence at the Sitka Center for Arts and Ecology in Oregon.

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ANDREW GUTELLE
Andrew is a writer, editor, and editorial consultant who has participated in the development of many publishing projects for children. He has written non-fiction books for many publishers, including Random House, Putnam, Workman, and Time-Life Books for Children. Andy received five Emmy nominations for his work on the television show Reading Rainbow.

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PETER P. JACOBI
Peter is professor emeritus of journalism at Indiana University and a consultant with magazines and corporations, helping CEOs, writers, and editors learn to express their ideas more effectively. His articles have appeared in World Book, The New York Times, Highlights, and others. His two guidebooks, The Magazine Article: How to Think It, Plan It, Write It and Writing with Style: The News Story and the Feature, are standard reference sources for journalists.

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ALVINA LING
Alvina is currently a senior editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, where she has worked for more than nine years. She edits children’s books for all ages, from picture books to young-adult novels, with some nonfiction mixed in. She has worked with many well-known authors and illustrators, including Newbery Award–winning author Jerry Spinelli, Caldecott Award–winning illustrators Ed Young and Ed Emberley, Grace Lin, and Tony Abbott. Some of her recently published titles are Sergio Makes a Splash by Edel Rodriguez, The Devouring by Simon Holt, Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein and illustrated by Ed Young, and North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley.


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DONNA JO NAPOLI
Donna Jo writes for preschoolers through high-schoolers, in a variety of genres from contemporary humor to gothic psychodrama. Her award-winning books include her picture book, Albert, and her novels Daughter of Venice, Breath, Beast, North, Stones in Water, and The King of Mulberry Street. And, since this bio is for writers, she wants you to know she has made every mistake in the book and invented some. It took her fourteen long years of rejection letters to sell anything. So take courage—you never know when the phone will ring.

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LARRY PRINGLE
Larry is a renowned writer with more than one hundred books to his credit, mostly nonfiction, including One Room School and American Slave, American Hero: York of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His most recent releases include Sharks! Strange and Wonderful and Imagine a Dragon (a nonfiction look at mythical creatures). Larry has won several national awards for his body of work. Through the years, he has honed his procrastination and how-to-avoid-writing skills. Nevertheless, he can give good writing advice to others, both young and old.

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STEPHEN ROXBURGH
Stephen has been involved with children’s books and publishing for more than thirty-five years, first as an academic, then as senior vice president and publisher, Books for Young Readers, at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux; and as the president and publisher of Front Street Books, a small, independent press he founded on April 1, 1994. In 2004 Front Street was acquired by Boyds Mills Press, where Stephen was publisher until September 2008.

Roxburgh has worked with such authors and artists as Felicia Bond, Nancy Eckholm Burkert, Brock Cole, Carolyn Coman, Roald Dahl, Donna Diamond, Madeleine L’Engle, Martine Leavitt, Patricia McCormick, An Na, Marilyn Nelson, Adam Rapp, Alvin Schwartz, George Selden, Uri Shulevitz, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Garth Williams, and Margot Zemach.

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BARBARA SANTUCCI
Barbara is the author of three picture books: Loon Summer, Anna’s Corn, and Abby’s Chairs. Her books have been selected for the International Reading Association’s Children’s Choice List and have won the Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year. She has also published short stories and poetry in several children’s magazines and adult anthologies. Barbara has worked as a free-lance artist for several years and is currently working on illustrations for one of her own picture books. Barbara has a BSED from Loyola University and an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College. She has been an elementary schoolteacher for years and is currently teaching creative writing to grades 1–8 in a private school in Rockford, Illinois. You can visit her Web site at www.barbarasantucci.com.

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HAROLD UNDERDOWN
Harold is a free-lance editorial consultant. He has worked at Macmillan, Orchard, and Charlesbridge, and has experience in trade and educational publishing. Among the books he has edited are Evelyn Coleman and Daniel Minter’s The Foot Warmer and the Crow, Yumi Heo’s One Afternoon, Laurence Pringle and Bob Marstall’s An Extraordinary Life, Lisa Rowe Fraustino’s Ash, Grace Lin’s The Ugly Vegetables, and Sneed Collard and Michael Rothman’s The Forest in the Clouds. He is also the editor for the Young Patriots Series, published by Patria Press.

Harold enjoys teaching, and in that role wrote The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Children’s Book Publishing, now in its third edition. He founded and runs “The Purple Crayon,” a respected Web site with information about the children’s publishing world at www.underdown.org. He speaks and gives workshops at conferences, including the SCBWI’s national conferences in Los Angeles and New York and smaller conferences all over the country.

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DEBORAH WOOTEN
Deb is currently an Associate Professor of Literacy in the Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education at The University of Tennessee. Her specialty includes young adult and children’s literature and literacy. Deb has served as regional team leader and co-chair of International Reading Association’s Children’s Choices Committee and on the IRA Children’s and Young Adult’s Book Award committee. An author of numerous books, chapters and articles, one of her most recent works was co-editing the Continuum Encyclopedia for Young Adult Literature.

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CAROLYN P. YODER
Carolyn is the editor of Calkins Creek Books, the U.S. history imprint of Boyds Mills Press, and the senior editor of history and world cultures at Highlights magazine. She is the author of John Adams: The Writer; Becoming George Washington; George Washington: The Writer; and three books in Heinemann Library’s We Are America series.

Carolyn has been an editor and writer for the New Jersey Historical Society and the executive director of the New Hampshire Antiquarian Society. From 1983–1996, she served as editor, editor in chief, and assistant publisher of Cobblestone Publishing, Inc.

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