Lesléa Newman is the author of 85 books for readers of all ages, including A Letter to Harvey Milk; October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard; I Carry My Mother; The Boy Who Cried Fabulous; Ketzel,the Cat Who Composed; and Heather Has Two Mommies . She has received many literary awards, including creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, two National Jewish Book Awards, two American Library Association Stonewall Honors, the Massachusetts Book Award, two Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Awards, as well as the Sydney Taylor Body-of-Work Award, the Highlights for Children Fiction Writing Award, a Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fiction Writing grant, the James Baldwin Award for Cultural Achievement, the Cat Writers' Association Muse Medallion, and the Dog Writers' Association of America's Maxwell Medallion. Nine of her books have been Lambda Literary Award finalists. Born in Germany and raised in New York City, Vesper Stamper has been an illustrator for over 20 years and now also writes and illustrates novels of historical fiction. Her debut illustrated YA novel, What the Night Sings , about the post-Holocaust period, was a National Book Award Nominee, a National Jewish Book Award Finalist, a Morris Award Finalist, Golden Kite Honor Book and Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner, and was named a Best YA Book of 2018/9 by YALSA, the Wall Street Journal and Kirkus. Vesper has a BFA in Illustration from Parsons and an MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay from School of Visual Arts. She lives with her husband, filmmaker Ben Stamper, in North Carolina.