MENTOR

Graham Akhurst is an Aboriginal writer hailing from the Kokomini of Northern Queensland. He has been published widely in Australia and America for poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction. His debut novel Borderland will be released in 2022 with Hachette Australia. Graham is the recipient of the W.G. Walker Fulbright Scholar to complete an MFA in fiction at Hunter College, CUNY. He has an Honours degree in creative writing and an Mphil in creative writing from the University of Queensland where he was also an Associate Lecturer in Indigenous Studies. He currently lives and studies in New York and is a Kweli Contributing Editor.

GRAHAM’S MENTEE

Lynn Mitchell is the Passamaquoddy Culture and Language teacher at Calais High School. She’s been teaching Passamaquoddy Culture and Language to Native and non-Native students at Calais for four years. Lynn believes her class bridges divides between Native and non-Native communities, creates a shared experience, and develops empathy and deepens ties between the communities.

MENTOR

Abhi Alwar is an Indian American freelance illustrator/designer based in NYC. She is interested in telling absurd, silly, and deceptively dark stories through comics and picture books. Her debut picture book, Hamsters Make Terrible Roommates, written by THE Cheryl Klein, is coming out on November 2, 2021. Preorders at Word Up Bookstore.

ABHI’S MENTEE

Lynnor Bontigao hails from one of the over 7,600 islands of the Philippines. As a kid, she was always drawing. She stapled her first picture book pages at the age of 10. In college she joined a children’s book illustrator group. When she moved to America, everything felt big and unknown. As a voice from an underrepresented group, she wants to share her own stories and illustrations.

MENTOR

Gloria Amescua is an author, poet and educator. She is the author of Child Of The Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter Of The Nahua, a picture book biography, written in verse. Duncan Tonatiuh is the illustrator. Abrams Books for Young Readers published her debut on August 17, 2021. An earlier version won the 2016 Lee and Low New Voices Honor Award. A variety of literary journals and anthologies have published Gloria’s poetry. Kweli published her poem Ancestral Migration in 2010.

GLORIA’S MENTEE

Constance Collier-Mercado is an experimental Writer, Artist, and Founder of The CultSTATUS Arts Haven. In line with her rich family history, she is forever in search of all the culture she can get - specifically, all the Black culture she can get.

MENTOR

Kukuwa Ashun is a progeny of Ghanaian immigrants. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from New York University. Ashun is a 2021 Kweli Writing Fellow, working on a novel and a collection of short stories in Brooklyn. She works as an Editorial Assistant at Macmillan.

KUKUWA’S MENTEE

Oelania Rubino couldn’t shake the desire to become a children’s book writer and illustrator. But being an artist is not a dream that poor immigrant girls are encouraged to have. Still, Rubino wants to be amongst the colors and the lessons and the funny creatures that exist inside her head. They also hide under beds from time to time to tickle toes. Rubino is working on a YA novel.

MENTOR

David Bowles is a Mexican American author and translator from south Texas. His new and forthcoming titles include My Two Border Towns and The Witch Owl Parliament, “a graphic novel unlike any other--a brilliant steampunk reimagining of Frankenstein set in colonial Mexico.” Among his award-winning titles are The Smoking Mirror and the critically hailed They Call Me Güero. David's work has also been published in multiple anthologies, plus venues such as The New York Times, School Library Journal, Strange Horizons, English Journal, Rattle, Translation Review, and the Journal of Children's Literature. In 2017, David was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. In 2020, he co-founded #DignidadLiteraria, a social justice movement advocating for greater Latinx representation in publishing.

DAVID’S MENTEE

Toni Margarita Plummer is Mexican-American writer and she wants to bring to life the folklore and mythology of Mexico for young readers. She is working on a middle grade novel, the first in a fantasy series that draws from Mesoamerican culture. She has published a short story collection, The Bolero of Andi Rowe.

MENTOR

Cozbi A. Cabrera paints, illustrates children’s books, quilts, and designs clothing. Her illustrated titles include: Beauty Her Basket/Sandra Belton, Greenwillow Books; Thanks A Million/Nikki Grimes, Greenwillow Books; Stitchin’ and Pullin’ A Gees Bend Quilt/Patricia McKissack, Random House; Most Loved in All the World/Tonya Cherie Hegamin, Houghton Mifflin (which won the Christopher Award, given to outstanding works that represent the best of the human spirit) and Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks/Suzanne Slade, Abrams Books. She authored and illustrated My Hair Is A Garden/Albert Whitman and Me and Mama/Simon & Schuster.

COZBI’S MENTEE

Laura Obuobi was born and raised in Ghana, but has been living in the United States for several years now. Obuobi is a former New York City Preschool Teacher and she received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Black Gold (Harper Collins, Fall 2022) is her debut picture book. It is illustrated by London Ladd.

MENTOR

Noni Carter is a historical and speculative fiction author. She has published work in RSA Journal, Kweli Journal (forthcoming), and is the author of the YA historical fiction novel, Good Fortune (Simon & Schuster, 2010), winner of the Parent’s Choice Gold award. She is a 2016 graduate of Voices of Our Nation and the recipient of the 2019 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship for her work-in-progress novel Womb Talk. Noni is currently finishing a PhD in French and Francophone studies with a focus on memory, gender, and slavery in the literary traditions of the Black diaspora, specifically the French Caribbean.

NONI’S MENTEE

Dominic Bradley is a disabled Black queer multimedia artist based in Brooklyn. Dominic holds a B.A. in Sociology from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University. They look forward to polishing the first few chapters of their YA novel.

MENTOR

Michaela Goade is an artist and picture book illustrator from Juneau, Alaska, traditional Lingít aaní (Tlingit land) and is enrolled with the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Goade is the first Indigenous person to win the Caldecott Medal for her work on We are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom. Her most recent picture book is I Sang You Down from the Stars by Tasha Spillett-Sumner. Shanyaak’utlaax: Salmon Boy (Sealaska Heritage Institute, 2018), was the winner of the 2018 American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Picture Book. Michaela lives in a cozy cabin by the sea, tucked away in the forest with a little studio down the trail, where she is working on her author-illustrator debut picture book, Berry Song.

MICHAELA’S MENTEE

Frances Soctomah is an artist who belongs to the Peskotomuhkatiyik – the People Who Spear Pollock. Known in English as the Passamaquoddy, they are part of a larger family called the Waponahkiyik or Wabanaki – the People of the Dawnland – who claim the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Abenaki as their own. Soctomah is interested in illustrating picture books.

MENTOR

Estella Gonzalez was born and raised in East Los Angeles which inspires her writing. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, The Acentos Review and Huizache. Her fiction and poetry have been anthologized in Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature by Bilingual Press and Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse by Lost Horse Press. She received a Pushcart Prize “Special Mention” and was selected a “Reading Notable” for The Best American Non-Required Reading. Her debut short story collection, Chola Salvation, was published April 30, 2021 by Arte Público Press.

ESTELLA’S MENTEE

Rebecca Garcia is a Library Assistant at Ethical Culture Fieldston School. She is enrolled in the master's program in information and library science at University of Buffalo and is working on a YA novel.

MENTOR

Joanna Ho is the author of Eyes that Kiss in the Corners (Jan 5, 2021), Playing at the Border: A Story of Yo-Yo Ma (Fall 2021), The Silence that Binds Us (2022) and One Day (2023). She is a writer and educator with a passion for anti-bias, anti-racism and equity work. She is currently the vice principal of a high school in the Bay Area, where she survives on homemade chocolate chip cookies, outdoor adventures, and dance parties with her kids.

JOANNA’S MENTEE

Jenny Liao is a writer based in L.A. focusing on food as a means to understand and embrace cultures—both others and our own. She is also currently working on her debut children’s book about Chinese foods and the traditions behind them.

MENTOR

Kirsti-Jewel is a former Bay Area school leader who recently accepted a role as the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at an independent school in Manhattan. She is a 2020 Kweli Fellow and she enjoys writing nonfiction for both children and adults. Her writing centers Black love, Black joy and Black resistance, and she has a forthcoming children’s book about Juneteenth that will be released in 2022 with Penguin Random House. She currently lives in Biggie’s neighborhood in Brooklyn with her dog, Trini, and their favorite thing to do is to open up the windows and listen to the music their neighbors are playing.

KIRSTI’S MENTEE

Summer Edward has written several books for young readers, amongst them The Wonder of the World Leaf, Renaissance Man: Geoffrey Holder's Life in the Arts, and First Class: How Elizabeth Lange Built a School. Her works have been called "refreshing", "heartwarming" and "emotionally captivating." She earned a master of education at the University of Pennsylvania. A former college writing instructor, she studied fiction at the Kelly Writers House.

MENTOR

Aram Kim was born in Ohio, raised in South Korea, and now lives in New York where she earned her M.F.A. in Illustration as Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts. She currently works as a senior designer for picture books and middle grade nonfiction at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. Aside from designing books, she is a children’s book author/illustrator. Her books includes Cat on the Bus (Children’s Choice Reading List 2017), No Kimchi for Me! (Junior Library Guild Selection, Bank Street College’s Best Children’s Book of the Year 2018, A Baker’s Dozen Award), and Let’s Go to Taekwondo! (April 28, 2020)

ARAM’S MENTEE

Stacey Byer is a Grenadian illustrator and creative consultant. She earned her B.F.A. at Ringling College of Art and Design. Stacey's work can be found in various art collections worldwide.