Asia



Jim Haskins is professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and lives in New York City and Gainesville. He currently serves as general editor of the Hippocrene Great Religions of the World series, and was general editor of The Filipino Nations, a three-volume work. Formerly Vice Director, Southeast Region, of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., he is currently a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S.

Author of the popular children’s book, Armadillo Tattletale, Helen Ketteman is an exceptional writer of over 13 books and has appeared on both television and radio. She has an Associates of Arts Degree from Young Harris College in Young Harris, GA and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from Georgia State University in Atlanta. She has taught both high school English and elementary school and has also taught continuing education classes in writing picture books at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Eve Bunting was born in 1928 in Ireland where she was raised, and she graduated from Methodist College. She has written more than two hundred books, ranging from picture books to young adult novels. Her subject matter spans both fantasy and reality. She has received countless awards for her writing, and never ceases to produce new books. Eve says that as long as the world is full of such wonderful ideas, she will continue writing. In addition, she says that, for her, writing is like breathing--it is necessary.

Pat Lauber has lived in southwestern Connecticut almost all her life; her family moved there just a few years after her birth in 1924. Growing up, she loved to read and also to write her own stories. After graduating from Wellesley College, where she majored in English, she began working in publishing for Scholastic. It was at Scholastic that she was encouraged to write down stories about her dog Clarence, which eventually evolved into her first book Clarence the TV Dog.