Featured Authors

High School Level Author - Jennifer Longo

Friday lunch, October 16

Jennifer is an actor, playwright, former elementary school librarian, and the author of Six Feet Over It. Her next novel, Up to This Pointe, will publish February 2016. She lives in the Seattle area. Learn more about her at http://www.jenlongo.com/

Jennifer Longo holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Acting from San Francisco State University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Writing For Theatre from Humboldt State University. She is a two-time Irene Ryan Best Actor Award recipient and a Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Best Full Length Script honoree for her play, FROZEN. Jennifer’s debut novel, SIX FEET OVER IT (Random House Books, 2014) received starred reviews from Kirkus and The Bulletin, and was selected as an Indies Introduce New Voices title. Her next novel, UP TO THIS POINTE (Random House Books) tells the story of a ballerina, a relative of Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott, whose dreams of stardom die, sending her to find a new path in the black winter of Antarctica and will publish January 2016. A California native and San Francisco transplant, Jennifer now lives with her husband and daughter on an island near Seattle, Washington where she is happily ensconced with a new literary family and her every hour is consumed by writing, running marathons, taking her kid to ballet class eleven thousand times each week and reading every book she can get her hands on. Connect with Jen at www.jenlongo.com or @jenlialongo

Middle Level Author - Jennifer Nielsen
Saturday breakfast, October 17

Jennifer A. Nielsen is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically-acclaimed Ascendance Trilogy including The False Prince,The Runaway King, and The Shadow Throne. She has also written The Underworld Chronicles, a humorous middle-grade fantasy series and Behind Enemy Lines, the 6th book in the bestselling Infinity Ring series. Don't forget to check out for her newest book, A Night Divided about the Berlin Wall which was just released.

Jennifer lives at the base of a very tall mountain in Northern Utah with her husband, three children, and a perpetually muddy dog. She loves the smell of rainy days, hot chocolate, and old books, preferably all at once. She is a former speech teacher, theater director, and enjoyed a brief but disastrous career as a door-to-door pollster. In her spare time, Jennifer tends to panic, wondering what she has forgotten to do that has allowed her any spare time. Connect with Jennifer at jennielsen.com.

Elementary Level Author - Nina Laden
Saturday luncheon, October 17

Nina Laden is an award-winning, best-selling children’s book author and illustrator who lives in Seattle and on Lummi Island, WA, but mostly she lives in her imagination. She grew up in the New York city area, the daughter of two artists and received a BFA from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. She has over a dozen books in print including The Night I Followed the Dog, When Pigasso Met Mootisse, and Roberto the Insect Architect. Peek-A Who? has sold over a million copies and there is a new OWL plush toy and the PEEK-A WHO MATCHING GAME for sale. Her latest books are Once Upon A Memory from Little, Brown & Company, and Peek-a Zoo! and Daddy Wrong Legs both published by Chronicle Books. Are We There Yet? and Peek-a Boo! will be out Fall 2015. Nina also visits schools, libraries, and speaks at events. She loves to inspire children and adults to be creative.

Read her blog here: http://thenightifollowedtheblog.blogspot.com/ and visit her website here: http://www.ninaladen.com

Middle Level Author -Dan Gemeinhart

Session Title: Reading as a Writer; Writing as a Reader

Dan Gemeinhart lives in a small town smack dab in the middle of Washington state with his wife and three young daughters. He’s lucky and grateful to be a National Board-certified teacher-librarian in a K-5 elementary school, where he gets to share awesome books with awesome kids. He loves camping, cooking and traveling. He also plays guitar (badly) and reads (constantly). His house is always a mess. He is really pretty darn happy. The Honest Truth, a middle grade novel about a sick boy who runs away from home with his dog to climb Mt. Rainier, is his first book. It was published by Scholastic Press in 2015.