Taking Aim: Power and Pain, Teens and Guns

About Alex FlinnChris CrutcherEdward AverettFrancesca Lia BlockGregory GallowayJenny HubbardMarc AronsonMichael CartPeter JohnsonRon Koertge

Michael Cart is a writer a lecturer a consultant and a nationally recognized expert in YA literature. He is the former director of the Beverly Hills (California) Public Library and a past president of the Young Adult Library Services Association and his column Carte Blanche appears monthly in Booklist magazine. He is the author or editor of twenty books including the gay coming-of-age novel My Father's Scar an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature; and-with Christine A. Jenkins-The Heart Has Its Reasons a critical history of young adult literature with gay/lesbian/queer content. His many anthologies include Love and Sex: Ten Stories of Truth Necessary Noise: Stories About Our Families as They Really Are and How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity. In 2008 he became the first recipient of the YALSA/Greenwood Publishing Group Service to Young Adults Achievement Award and in 2000 he received the Grolier Foundation Award for his contribution to the stimulation and guidance of reading by young people. Mr. Cart lives in Columbus Indiana. Francesca Lia Block winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books including Weetzie Bat; the book collections Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books and Roses and Bones: Myths Tales and Secrets; the illustrated novella House of Dolls; the vampire romance novel Pretty Dead; and the gothic werewolf novel The Frenzy. Her work is published around the world. Chris Crutcher has written nine critically acclaimed novels an autobiography and two collections of short stories. Drawing on his experience as a family therapist and child protection specialist Crutcher writes honestly about real issues facing teenagers today: making it through school competing in sports handling rejection and failure and dealing with parents. He has won three lifetime achievement awards for the body of his work: the Margaret A. Edwards Award the ALAN Award and the NCTE National Intellectual Freedom Award. Chris Crutcher lives in Spokane Washington. Alex Flinn loves fairy tales and is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Beastly a spin on Beauty and the Beast that was named a VOYA Editor's Choice and an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. Beastly is now a major motion picture starring Vanessa Hudgens. Alex also wrote A Kiss in Time a modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty; Cloaked a humorous fairy-tale mash-up; Bewitching a reimagining of fairy-tale favorites including Hansel and Gretel Cinderella The Princess and the Pea and The Little Mermaid all told by Kendra the witch from Beastly; Towering a darkly romantic take on Rapunzel; and Mirrored a fresh spin on Snow White. Her other books for teens include Breathing Underwater Breaking Point Nothing to Lose Fade to Black and Diva. She lives in Miami with her family. Visit her online at www.alexflinn.com. Peter Johnson grew up in Buffalo New York at a time when they had a good football team which seems like fifty years ago. Similar to Benny Alvarez and his friends Peter always loved words knowing he was going to be a teacher or a professional baseball player. Also being from a long line of Irish storytellers he loved reading and telling tales and when he realized that his stories changed every time he told them and that he could get paid for this kind of lying he decided to become a novelist. His first middle grade novel The Amazing Adventures of John Smith Jr. AKA Houdini was named one of the Best Children's Books by Kirkus Reviews and he's received many writing fellowships most notably from the National Endowment for the Arts. Christine Heppermann and Ron Koertge are the authors of acclaimed young adult books and are writing for young readers for the first time. After meeting through Hamline University's MFA program they decided to collaborate. Christine lives in New York and Ron lives in California so they work most of their magic long-distance. Chris Lynch is a National Book Award finalist and the author of many highly acclaimed books for young adults including The Big Game of Everything Who the Man and the Michael L. Printz Honor Book Freewill; Iceman Shadow boxer Gold Dust and Slot Machine all ALA Best Books for Young Adults; and Extreme Elvin. He also mentors aspiring writers and teaches in the creative writing program at Lesley University in Cambridge Massachusetts. Walter Dean Myers was the New York Times bestselling author of Monster the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award; a former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature; and an inaugural NYC Literary Honoree. Myers received every single major award in the field of children's literature. He was the author of two Newbery Honor Books and six Coretta Scott King Awardees. He was the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults a three-time National Book Award Finalist as well as the first-ever recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Will Weaver is an award-winning fiction writer. His latest novel is The Survivors a sequel to his popular young adult novel Memory Boy. His other books include Full Service Defect Saturday Night Dirt Super Stock Rookie Checkered Flag Cheater Claws and the Billy Baggs books Striking Out Farm Team and Hard Ball all of which are ALA Best Books for Young Adults. Formerly an English professor at Bemidji State University he lives in northern Minnesota a region he writes from and loves. He is an avid outdoorsman and enjoys hunting fishing canoeing and hiking with his family and friends. Tim Wynne-Jones has twice won the prestigious Governor General's Award for Children's Literature in Canada most recently for his novel The Maestro. He makes his home in eastern Ontario Canada.