Kekla Magoon is the renowned author of numerous fiction and nonfiction titles for young readers, including Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People; X: A Novel, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz; How It Went Down; and The Season of Styx Malone. She has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the John Steptoe New Talent Author Award, an NAACP Image Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and three Coretta Scott King Honors, among others. Kekla Magoon lives in Montpelier, Vermont, and teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Cynthia Leitich Smith is an NSK Neustadt Laureate and acclaimed author of Hearts Unbroken, winner of the American Indian Youth Literature Award; Harvest House; Sisters of the Neversea; the New York Times best-selling Tantalize and Feral series; Rain Is Not My Indian Name; and Jingle Dancer, illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu. She also edited the anthology Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids, is the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused children’s and YA imprint, and served as the inaugural Katherine Paterson Chair at Vermont College of Fine Arts. A Muscogee Nation citizen, Cynthia Leitich Smith lives in Austin, Texas.
Molly Murakami is a cartoonist, illustrator, writer, and creator of several webcomics. The Blue Stars Series: Mission One: The Vice-Principal Problem is her publishing debut. She lives in Minnesota.