MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults Archive

Nick Thomas is Executive Editor at Levine Querido in the U.S.A. He has previously held roles at Bloomsbury, Chicken House, David Fickling Books, and Arthur...

Cynthia Leitich Smith (she/her) is the 2021 NSK Neustadt Laureate as well as a New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestselling children’s-YA writer, a writing...

Author and filmmaker, Brian Young is a graduate of both Yale University with a Bachelor’s in Film Studies and Columbia University with a Master’s in...

Lyn Miller-Lachmann is the author of the YA historical novel Torch (Carolrhoda Lab, 2022), winner of the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young...

Natasha Fisher (she/her) received her MFA in the Writing for Children and Young Adults program in the summer of 2021. She has a BA in...

brandon brown (he/they) is a Winter 2023 graduate of the MFA in Writing program. They say they came here for their “MFA in strange stories.”...

CENTER FOR ARTS + SOCIAL JUSTICE STORIES: Meet writer and class of 2024 WCYA candidate Ty Chapman, one of six recipients of our 2022 VCFA...

VCFA alumnx Lyn Miller-Lachmann (WCYA ‘12) was awarded the distinguished Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature in the spring of 2023 for...

Kelly Starling Lyons is a founding member of The Brown Bookshelf, teaching artist and award-winning children’s book author. Her mission is to center Black heroes,...

Evan Griffith is the author of the middle-grade novel Manatee Summer (a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection) and the picture book biography ...