Kellie Byrnes is a children’s author, presenter, mentor, book reviewer, kidlit blogger, and full-time freelance writer with a BA degree in Literature. Kellie’s first picture book, Cloud Conductor, came out in 2018, followed by Yes! No and Evie Is All Ears. Kellie also has two more picture books and her first junior-fiction novel on the way.

As an emerging Australian author, Kellie was chosen as an Artist in Residence at The Crows Nest, Queensland, for four months in 2019, thanks to the Sunshine Coast Council. She has also received three separate Regional Arts Development Funding grants from the Sunshine Coast Council to date to help her develop her writing career. Kellie was chosen as a mentee in the 2018 Writing with the Stars picture-book mentorship program in the United States, and as a mentee in the inaugural FicFest writing mentorship program in the United States in 2016.

Plus, she has been a judge for two years in a row for the Pitch It writer’s competition run by Just Write for Kids Australia, and she reviews and blogs about kidlit monthly. Kellie also mentors and provides critiques and marketing services for new authors.

Gabriella Petruso is a doctor by day and an award-winning, self-taught illustrator by every other waking hour.

She uses ink to bring her whimsical characters to life and spends a lot of time at her local zoo seeking her next muse.