TCU Summer Literacy Institute

Lesa Cline-Ransome is the award-winning author of many critically acclaimed books for young readers including Before She was Harriet, Overground Railroad, Game Changers:  The Story of Venus and Serena Williams and Fighting With Love:  The Legacy of John Lewis.  Her numerous honors include the Jane Addams Honor Award, the Christopher Award, Kirkus, and SLJ Best Book of Year and three NAACP Image Award nominations.  Her middle grade novel Finding Langston received the Coretta Scott King Author Honor and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.  When not writing, Lesa loves eating chocolate and napping.   

A mom to four wonderful humans, Lesa lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York with her husband and frequent collaborator, illustrator James Ransome.

Meg Medina served as the 2023-2024 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her newest middle-grade novel, Graciela in the Abyss, is her first fantasy. She is also the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Merci Suárez Changes Gears, a 2018 Kirkus Prize finalist, and is followed by two more acclaimed books about the Suárez family: Merci Suárez Can’t Dance and Merci Suárez Plays It Cool. Her young adult novels include Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, which won the 2014 Pura Belpré Author Award, and  was published in 2023 as a graphic novel illustrated by Mel Valentine Vargas; Burn Baby Burn, which was long-listed for the National Book Award; and The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind. She is also the author of picture books No More Señora Mimí / No más Señora Mimí, Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away / Evelyn del Rey se muda, illustrated by Sonia Sánchez, Jumpstart’s 2020 Read for the Record selection; Mango, Abuela, and Me, illustrated by Angela Dominguez, which was a Pura Belpré Author Award Honor Book; and Tía Isa Wants a Car, illustrated by Claudio Muñoz, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award; and biographies for young readers She Persisted: Sonia Sotomayor and She Persisted: Pura Belpré, the latter with Marilisa Jiménez García. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Richmond, Virginia.