Melanie Crowder

Melanie Crowder teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the author of nine acclaimed books for young readers. Her titles have received numerous starred reviews, as well as national and state awards, including having been named a Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection, and a New York Public Library Best Book for Kids. Her historical novel in verse, Audacity, received a Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon and the Jefferson Cup. She lives on the Colorado Front Range, where downslope chinook winds regularly visit her home.

Megan Benedict holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poetry has been published in Bravery magazine and the Hyacinth Review. Great Gusts is her first picture book. She writes poetry and fiction in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains and loves to chase the salty sea breezes of any coast she can get to.

Khoa Le is the author and illustrator of numerous picture books, including Sugar in Milk by Thrity Umrigar, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and Miriam at the River by Jane Yolen, an Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Honor Book. Khoa Le lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where she works to preserve her country's ocean as a member of a local free-dive group.