Jacqueline Briggs Martin is the author of eighteen picture books for children, including Snowflake Bentley, which received the Caldecott Award in 1999. Her most recent book is Alice Waters and the Trip to Delicious. She is a faculty member in Hamline University's low-residency MFAC program.

Tracy Nelson Maurer has written more than 100 nonfiction books and co-authored an article about back matter. A recipient of the Rudolf Nonfiction Award and an SCBWI Work-In-Progress Grant, she has two forthcoming picture-book biographies and other titles under contract. She holds an MFA from Hamline University.

Phyllis Root has been writing books for children for over thirty years and has published more than forty books for children. She is currently an instructor in the Hamline University MFA program in writing for children and young adults.

Liza Ketchum’s sixteen books for young readers include the novels Out of Left Field, Newsgirl, and Where the Great Hawk Flies, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award. Nonfiction titles include Into a New Country and The Gold Rush. She was a founding member of Hamline University's MFAC program.