We are very fortunate this year to have 3 special guests joining us for the 2014 APALA Midwinter Social Dinner! Please join us at Karma Restaurant & Bar on Saturday, January 25th at 5:30PM and hear Ellen, Soman and Phoebe discuss diversity in YA and children’s literature and their upcoming works! Click here to register for this event!
Originally from NYC, Ellen Oh is an adjunct college instructor and former entertainment lawyer with an insatiable curiosity for ancient Asian history. She also loves martial arts films, K-pop, K-dramas, cooking shows, and is a rabid fan of The Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra series. Ellen lives in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and three daughters and has yet to satisfy her quest for a decent bagel. http://www.ellenoh.com/index1.html
Soman Chainani’s first novel, THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL, debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List, has been translated into languages across six continents, and will soon be a major motion picture from Universal Studios. As a writer and film director, Soman’s films have played at over 150 film festivals around the world, winning more than 30 jury and audience prizes. He has a BA in English Literature from Harvard and an MFA in Film from Columbia University. http://somanchainani.net/
Phoebe Yeh joined Random House Children’s Books in the newly created post of v-p, publisher, Crown Books for Young Readers where she is publishing new books with a focus on middle-grade fiction and narrative nonfiction. Her Fall 14 inaugural list includes books by New York Times bestselling authors Suzy Becker, Jon Meacham, and Walter Dean Myers and newcomer Lou Anders. Prior to joining HC in 1996, Yeh was a senior editor at Scholastic Press, where she edited the Magic School Bus books and was an editor of the SeeSaw Book Club. As Editorial Director at Harper Collins she was responsible for the estate programs of Maurice Sendak, Shel Silverstein, and C.S. Lewis, the Series of Unfortunate Events publishing program, and the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series, and acquired Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate series. She has worked with Aliki, Soman Chainani, Eloise Greenfield, Julius Lester, Betsy and Ted Lewin, Christopher Myers, Walter Dean Myers, Ellen Oh, Joanne Ryder, Seymour Simon, and Laurence Yep.