Book Fair

Kristen Bird

Kristen Bird is a USA Today Bestselling Author, a teacher, and a certified book coach. She has lived coast to coast, but with her extended family in north Alabama, her roots run southern deep. She teaches high school English and writes in local coffee shops near her home outside of Houston. In her free time, she likes to visit parks with her three children, watch quirky films with her husband, and attempt to keep pace with her rescue lab-mix.

Celeste Connally

Celeste Connally is the USA Today bestselling author of the Lady Petra Inquires series, an Agatha Award nominee, and a former freelance writer and editor. Her mysteries are set in Regency-era England and feature a headstrong heroine, a dose of romance, and a few research facts she hopes you’ll find as interesting as she does. Passionate about history and slightly obsessed with period dramas, what Celeste loves most is writing about women who don’t always do as they’re told.

Karen Fang

Karen Fang is a film scholar and visual culture critic who writes and speaks for museums and film festivals around the world. Known for previous books about Hong Kong cinema and nineteenth-century British interest in exotic objects, Karen often writes about the intersection of eastern and western aesthetics. She is also a prominent contributor to The Engines of Our Ingenuity, a long-running, widely distributed public radio series about science and innovation, where her episodes always focus on the visual arts.

Marc J Gregson

Marc J Gregson is a New York Times bestselling author. He attended the University of Utah, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in English teaching. Marc’s pursuit of learning has led him into the classroom, where he teaches middle school English. He believes in the power of words and that stories can unite people from all origins. Above the Black is his first fantasy trilogy for teens.

Susan Hood

Susan Hood is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including ADA’S VIOLIN; ALIAS ANNA; HARBORING HOPE; THE LAST STRAW: Kids vs. Plastics; LIFEBOAT 5; LIFEBOAT 12; SHAKING THINGS UP: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World; TITAN AND THE WILD BOARS: The True Cave Rescue of the Thai Soccer Team; and WE ARE ONE: How the World Adds Up. Susan is the recipient of the E.B. White Honor Award, two Christopher Awards, the Américas Award, the SCBWI Golden Kite Award, and the Bank Street Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, given to “a distinguished work of nonfiction that serves as an inspiration to young people.” ALIAS
ANNA was named a 2023 Sydney Taylor Notable Book and was a finalist for the 2023 National Jewish Book Awards.

Angélique Jamail

Angélique Jamail is a Lebanese-American author whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Synkroniciti, Equinox, New Reader Magazine, Waxwing, The Milk of Female Kindness, Femmeliterate, Literary Mama, and many others. The first time she read one of her stories to an audience was fourth grade; it was a character-building experience. Her books include A Narrowing Path (fiction, Memento Vivere Press), The Sharp Edges of Water (poetry, Odeon Press), and the forthcoming Stray(fiction, Memento Vivere Press). Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net (for essay), has been a finalist for the New Letters Prize in Poetry, and has won various essay contests. She serves on the Board of Directors for Mutabilis Press and is the Director of Creative Writing at The Kinkaid School. She’s also the creator of the popular zine Sonic Chihuahua.

Jehan Madhani

Jehan Madhani is a South Asian–American writer and cartoonist for audiences big and small. Her first picture book, Eli and the Uncles, was published by Candlewick in 2024, and received the Lee & Low 2020 New Voices Honor.She was a fellow in the inaugural class of the Sesame Workshop Writers’ Room and as a TV writer, she has been Emmy-nominated for her work on Karma’s World on Netflix. Her work can be seen across a number of shows, including Deepa & Anoop, Lyla in the Loop, Get Rolling with Otis, and Dee & Friends in Oz. She lives in Brooklyn with a family of unappreciative cats whom she repatriated from her parents’ Houston, Texas garage.

Walker Peacock

Walker Peacock is a clinical psychologist in Houston, where he lives with his wife and daughter. Growing up with undiagnosed ADHD, Dr. Peacock often heard from coaches and teachers that he was stupid, or lazy, or that he just didn’t care. If it weren’t for his parents and a collection of very special teachers and therapists, he may have just started to believe it. In his professional practice, Dr. Peacock works with adolescents and adults whose emotional and/or learning disorders cause them to question their own strengths and abilities. This book is inspired by their incredible journeys, and is written not just for them, but also for their parents, coaches, and teachers.

Charlie Scott

Charlie Scott teaches AP Literature at Kinkaid. He grew up in Fort Payne, Alabama, and studied drama, poetry, and creative writing at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, the University of Iowa, and the University of Houston. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, and journals, including The New Republic, The Antioch Review, Gulf Coast, Zocalo Public Square, The Poetry Miscellany, Western Humanities Review, Intellectual Refuge, Mutabilis, The Sequoyah Review, And Alabama Poets: An Anthology (Livingston University Press). He is a founding member of Infernal Bridegroom Productions and the Catastrophic Theatre, the city’s leading avant-garde theatre company for the past 30 years.