How Beautiful the Ordinary

Past president of the Young Adult Library Services Association, Michael Cart was a columnist and reviewer for Booklist magazine. He was also the author or editor of nineteen books, including the gay coming-of-age novel My Father’s Scar and—with Christine Jenkins—The Heart Has Its Reasons, a critical history of young adult literature with gay/lesbian/queer content. His anthologies include Love and Sex: Ten Stories of Truth and Necessary Noise: Stories about Our Families as They Really Are. In 2008 he was 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.

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.

David Levithan was not born in France, Milwaukee or Olympia, Washington. He did not go to Eton, Harvard Law School or Oxford University. He is not the author of War and Peace, Hollywood Wives: The New Generation or The Baby-sitters Club #8: Boy-crazy Stacey. He has not won the Newbery Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the Bausch & Lomb Science Award or the race for eleventh-grade vice president. He currently does not live in Manhatten.

Ron Koertge is the author of many acclaimed novels for young people, including Stoner & Spaz and Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, and most recently is coauthor, with Gary D. Schmidt, of Styx and Stones. A two-time winner of the PEN Award, Ron lives in South Pasadena, California, where he is currently the city’s poet laureate.

Born in Dublin in 1969, and now living in Canada, Emma Donoghue writes fiction (novels and short stories, contemporary and historical), as well as drama for screen and stage. Room was shortlisted for the Booker, Commonwealth and Orange Prizes, selling nearly three million copies in forty languages. Donoghue was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film adaptation starring Brie Larson. She also co-wrote the film of her novel The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh, as well as H Is for Hawk, from the memoir by Helen Macdonald. Her plays include adaptations of her novels Room and The Pull of the Stars, and a folk musical, The Wind Coming Over the Sea., Born in Dublin in 1969, and now living in Canada, Emma Donoghue writes fiction (novels and short stories, contemporary and historical), as well as drama for screen and stage. Room was shortlisted for the Booker, Commonwealth and Orange Prizes, selling nearly three million copies in forty languages. Donoghue was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film adaptation starring Brie Larson. She also co-wrote the film of her novel The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh, as well as H Is for Hawk, from the memoir by Helen Macdonald. Her plays include adaptations of her novels Room and The Pull of the Stars, and a folk musical, The Wind Coming Over the Sea.