Librarians Who Are Authors 
of Children's & Young Adult Literature

    In the fall of 2000, Jerri Garretson, owner of Ravenstone Press and a former children's librarian and author herself, responded to a suggestion from her husband, Peter, that a project to identify children's authors and illustrators who are, or who have been, librarians, would make an interesting web project and presentation subject.

    She began her effort to identify these creative people by posting a notice on the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) listserv requesting that subscribers who were in this group contact her, or let her know about those who fit the description.  The response was outstanding.  She also contacted other groups she thought might have knowledge of librarian-writers and illustrators.  In early January 2001, she posted notices on the child_lit and PUBYAC listservs, and was quickly innundated with many more names.  Jerri would like to thank not only all those writer-librarians who contacted her, but all the helpful members of SCBWI, child_lit, and PUBYAC who contacted her with suggested names.

    Corresponding with this group quickly became fascinating.  Jerri asked them to participate in an email questionnaire about their writing or illustrating and how it interacted with their librarianship, and began doing further research online and in standard reference sources about children's authors and illustrators such as Something About the Author (SATA). 

     Jerri has not been able to keep up with the flood of information and there are many more participating author-librarians (P) than she has constructed pages for so far.  However, this project is ongoing and Jerri will continue to add information and resources.  Projected online aspects of the project are:

1.  A list of published authors who are, or who have been, librarians, with brief information about both their library and writing careers.
2.  A list of as-yet unpublished authors who are, or who have been, librarians.
3,  A collection of web links to these authors home pages (for those who have them) or to other internet resources about them and their work.
4.  Individual pages for each author who completes the questionnaire, featuring their answers, selected books with purchase links to Amazon.com*, and, when supplied, author photos.
6.  A summary article about the project.

*Note:  Some authors have elected not to have purchase links to online booksellers, preferring that patrons support local independent book stores.

Jerri presented a program about this project for the Kansas Library Association Triconference on April 4, 2001, in Topeka, Kansas.  The Triconference is also the annual conference for the Kansas Association of School Librarians and The Kansas Association for Educational Technology.

SOURCES and WEB PAGE NOTES:
No information is posted on the website that has not either been supplied by the author or verified in a printed source such as Something About the Author.  There are several people who have been suggested as belonging to this group who are not yet listed for one of these reasons.

Where you see blank spaces, it is because Jerri has not yet completed that portion, the information has not been found yet, or it has not been verified yet.  Updates have been slow in the years since 2004 due to several family crises.

The notation, "No web page," means that either the author has no personal website, or that Jerri did not find a website devoted to that author using a Google search.  However, in many cases, there are mentions of the author on some sites, or reviews of their books available on other sites.  The sites Jerri has chosen to list either are the author's own websites, sites that have biographical information about the author, or have excellent content about their work.  For some, there may be sketches about them on publisher sites that she has not yet found.

If you know of people who belong in this group or websites that should be added, please contact Jerri at this email address:
raven@ravenstonepress.com

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