Nic Stone is the author of many novels, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Dear Martin, its New York Times bestselling sequel Dear Justyce, and the final national bestselling installment Dear Manny, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection and a CBC Kids Top Ten Favorite in the 9th–12th grade category. She also penned the young adult titles Odd One Out, an NPR Best Book and an ALA Rainbow Book Top Ten; Jackpot, the YALSA Quick Pick selection that takes a searing look at economic inequality; and Chaos Theory, a Southern Book Prize finalist and a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection. Her middle-grade novels include Clean Getaway, a New York Times bestseller, and Fast Pitch, a YALSA Quick Pick selection. Nic lives in Atlanta and will continue to write the books she feels are missing.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar is a historian, professor at Emory University, Black and Women’s history speaker, and main historical consultant and coexecutive producer for HBO’s The Gilded Age. Her work shines a light on racial injustice, slavery, and gender inequality. She is the author of Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge, which was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction and received the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Award. An eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught tells the story of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave who risked it all for freedom. Erica Armstrong Dunbar gives readers a look into the life of a powerful figure in American history and the ensuing manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.

An accomplished scholar, Erica Armstrong Dunbar was named the National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH) in 2019, an organization dedicated to continuing the advancement for the study of black women’s history. In 2011, she became the Inaugural Director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia, a position she held until 2018. An in-demand speaker on U.S., Black, and Women’s history, Dunbar gives audiences an intimate look at the often-overlooked stories that make our country’s history so richly diverse.

Additional Support Provided by The Ona Judge Coalition

Frederick Joseph is a three-time New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. His books span both the adult and children’s book spaces, including The Black Friend; Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Courage to Dream; Patriarchy Blues; and, most recently, This Thing of Ours. His work has been well celebrated and recognized in many ways: being named an Amazon Editors’ pick, notable by the International Literacy Association, being selected as Best Children’s Book of the Year by Bank Street College, being a Booklist Editors’ Choice, and many, many more.

Sherine Hamdy is a medical anthropologist who teaches courses on comics, Middle East culture, and literary anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Our Bodies Belong to God and co-creator of the graphic novel Lissa. She co-edits ethnoGRAPHIC, an academic series that publishes works integrating ethnography and comics for the University of Toronto Press. Born in New York to Egyptian parents, she grew in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Bamako, Mali; and Mexico City, Mexico. She currently lives in Irvine, CA, with her husband and two daughters.