Lisa Desimini graduated from The School of Visual Arts. Since then she has illustrated over thirty books for children. Nine of them she has written herself. Her books include, MY HOUSE which was one of the New York Times Ten Best illustrated Books of the Year. LOVE LETTERS by Arnold Adoff was a Publisher's Weekly and School LIbrary Journal Best Book of the Year and a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book. Other titles include, HOW THE STARS FELL INTO THE SKY by Jerrie Oughton, DOODLE DANDIES by J. Patrick Lewis, ANANSI DOES THE IMPOSSIBLE by Verna Aardema and DOT THE FIRE DOG, which has sold over 300,000 copies. Lisa's work has also graced the cover of many book jackets, including WALK TWO MOONS by Sharon Creech; ANIMAL DREAMS, THE BEAN TREES, and PIGS IN HEAVEN, by Barbara Kingsolver; and THE SOOKIE SERIES, by Charlaine Harris.
Lisa and her husband, Matt Mahurin, collaborated on MY BEAUTIFUL CHILD, of which School Library Journal said, ".this volume lends itself to imaginative contemplation in its sense of joy and wonder." Matt and Lisa live in Topanga, CA One of San Antonio's best known writers, Naomi Shihab Nye has been called a "national treasure." She refers to herself as a "wandering poet." Indeed, for 40 years she has traveled the world giving readings and teaching workshops on six continents. She is the author of two dozen books of poetry for all ages, novels for young adults, short story collections, essays, and children's books. She is the editor of three anthologies, including This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World, which contains translated work by 129 poets from 68 different countries. This Same Sky (Simon & Schuster) has been in print since 1992.
She has won many awards and fellowships, including four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children's Book award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and many notable book and best book citations from the American Library Association. She has held numerous fellowships and residencies, including a Witter Bynner Fellowship. Nye was In 2009, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2009. That same year she was named as one of PeaceByPeace.com's first ''Peace heroes." In October 2012, Nye was named laureate of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature. Ibtisam Barakat, the juror who championed Nye for the award wrote, "Naomi's incandescent humanity and voice can change the world." Nye's work is often based on her heritage as as Arab-American (Palestinian).
Her novel Habibi is a semi-autobiographical story of an Arab-American teenager who moves to Jerusalem in the 1990s. Her perspective, however, is global, yet very grounded in specific places. For example, Nye's first collection of poems, Different Ways to Pray (Breitenbush, 1980), set out to explore similarities and differences between cultures, a theme that permeates all her work. Hugging the Jukebox (Dutton, 1982), which received the Texas Institute of Letters' Poetry Prize, also focused on the connections between diverse peoples. Her other books include numerous poetry collections, including 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (HarperCollins, 2002), Yellow Glove (Breitenbush, 1986), Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Eighth Mountain Press, 1994), What Have You Lost? (Greenwillow, 2001), A Maze Me: Poems for Girls (Greenwillow Books, 2005), Red Suitcase (Consortium, 1994), Field Trip and Fuel (BOA Editions, 1998), You & Yours (BOA Editions, 2005), Honeybee: poems & short prose (Greenwillow, 2008), Tender Spot: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2008), Transfer (BOA Editions, 2011). She is also the author of a collection of essays entitled Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places (University of South Carolina Press, 1996); a short story collection, There Is No Long Distance Now: Very Short Stories (Greenwillow, 2011); illustrated children's books, includeing Sitti's Secrets (Aladdin Picture Books, 1997), Benito's Dream Bottle (Simon & Schuster, 1995), and Lull.