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Paula Morrow enjoys the best of both worlds as editor and occasional author. She has edited Ladybug since 1991, Babybug since its 1994 launch, picture books for the Cricket/McGraw-Hill imprint, and chapter books for Cricket Books and Scholastic Book Clubs. Before coming to the Cricket group, Paula was for many years an enthusiastic children’s librarian. Her own publications include over 200 pieces for children, parents, and professionals. She contributes a regular column to the writers’ newsletter, Once Upon a Time.
H. Emerson Blake is the editor-in-chief of Milkweed Editions, the largest independent nonprofit literary press in the U.S., and one of only a handful of literary presses that publishes children's literature.
Joy Neaves, Editor, has worked at Front Street since 1999. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a degree in literature and language. She stumbled into the job at Front Street while working and pursuing a graduate degree. She made a quick journey from reading children's books to her six nieces to editing books instead.
Valerie Valentine is a writer and editor living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has enjoyed working for small presses for several years, including a university press and two independent publishers. Her work at Llewellyn Worldwide, the nation’s oldest New Age publisher, has provided her with insights into niche publishing. She will be representing Llewellyn’s emerging Teen and Middle Grade lines at Springmingle 2005.
Loraine Joyner has been the art director of Peachtree Publishers for the past eleven years. Fresh out of college, she was a designer for Montag social stationery and Blue Horse school supplies in Atlanta. Then she became THE Art Director. For 14 years, she painted flowers, birds, butterflies, and pretty patterns of every description. She was first to innovate what has come to be known as “hot” colors in the paper manufacturing industry and won the first of numerous art direction awards—a NY Art Directors Gold Medal. The next twelve years she ran her own studio and graphic design business doing corporate identity, ads, promo pieces, magazine layout, and product design for print media. Other art director awards include the ADDY, and the most recent being the Society of Illustrators Award of Merit in 2003.
Judy Zylstra A former art and English teacher, foster care social worker, and overseas literacy developer, Judy Zylstra got her editorial start in magazine and educational publishing. Since early 1997 she has served as editor-in-chief of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, an imprint of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.