Bios

Author and Illustrator Bios

Jane Yolen is the author of more than 300 books, including science fiction, fantasy, and poetry. Her 150 picture books include How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight (illustrated by Mark Teague), Caldecott award winning Owl Moon (illustrated by John Schoenherr), and recently published Mirror to Nature, illustrated by her son, photographer Jason Stemple. She has collaborated with many local illustrators including Kathryn Brown, Jane Dyer, Barry Moser, and Ruth Sanderson and helped the careers of many others.
Website: www.janeyolen.com

Dennis Nolan has written and illustrated a number of picture books, including The Castle Builder and Dinosaur Dreams, and has illustrated the work of many other authors, among them Bruce Colville and local author Ann Warren Turner. He’s on the MFA Faculty of Hartford Art School. He paints in acrylics and watercolor.

Jane Yolen and Dennis Nolan’s other collaborations are: Dove Isabeau, Wings, and the collection Sherwood: Original Stories from the World of Robin Hood.

Richard Michelson is a poet and the author of many picture books, including Tuttle’s Red Barn (illustrated by Mary Azarian), Too Young for Yiddish (illustrated by Neil Waldman), and Sydney Taylor Award winning As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel's Amazing March Toward Freedom (illustrated by Raul Colon). His gallery in Northampton, R. Michelson Gallery features the work of many area children’s book illustrators.
Website: www.rmichelson.com

Leonard Baskin (1922 – 2000) was a sculptor, book illustrator, printmaker, graphic artist, and writer. He was the founder of Gehenna Press, which specialized in the production of fine books. He taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College.
His illustrations for Ten Times Better are watercolor.

Richard Michelson and Leonard Baskin’s other collaborations are:
A Book of Flies, Did You Say Ghosts? and Animals That Ought to Be.

Patricia MacLachlan has co-authored several picture books with her daughter, Emily MacLachlan Charest, including Bittle (illustrated by Dan Yaccarino). She has written many picture books including All the Places to Love (illustrated by Michael Wimmer) and two illustrated by local artists: What you Know First (illustrated by Barry Moser) and Three Names (illustrated by the late Alexander Pertzoff). Her many novels include Newbery Medal winner Sarah, Plain and Tall.

Katy Schneider exhibits her paintings nationwide, and is on the faculty of Smith College. Her most recent solo exhibition was at the Pepper Gallery in Boston. Painting the Wind was her first picture book.
She paints in oils.
Website: www.katyschneider.com

Katy Schneider’s other collaborations with co-authors Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest are: Painting the Wind and the forthcoming I Didn’t Do It, a book about puppies.

Kathryn Brown is the author and illustrator of Muledred, and has illustrated picture books by many authors, including Jane Yolen’s Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mole, Cynthia Rylant’s The Old Woman Who Named Things, Mem Fox’s Tough Boris, and the poetry collection Climb into My Lap, First Poems to Read Together edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Her most recent picture book is My Little Grandmother Often Forgets by Reeve Lindbergh.

Corinne Demas (exhibit curator) is a Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College and a fiction editor of The Massachusetts Review. She has published in a number of genres including fiction, memoir, and poetry, and is the author of many picture books including The Disappearing Island (illustrated by Ted Lewin). and Henry Bergh Award winner Saying Goodbye to Lulu (illustrated by Ard Hoyt), and most recently Always in Trouble (illustrated by Noah Z. Jones). Her books published before 2000 (including The Littlest Matryoshka) are under the name Corinne Demas Bliss.
Website: www.corinnedemas.com