Open Mic (12 page)

OLUGBEMISOLA RHUDAY-PERKOVICH
wrote
8th Grade Superzero,
an International Reading Association Notable Book for a Global Society. She is featured in several books on writing:
Real Revision,
Seize the Story,
Wild Ink,
and
Keep Calm and Query On,
and is a contributor to the essay collection
Break These Rules.
She has a master’s in educational technology with a concentration in English education. “I was the new kid at school many times over, in more than one country,” says Olugbemisola. “I now live with my family in Brooklyn, where I write, make things, and need more sleep.”

DEBBIE RIGAUD
was born in Manhattan, but the Rigaud family packed up the kids and headed to East Orange, New Jersey. “My parents never fully transitioned to Jersey living,” says Debbie. “My childhood was happily spent heading back to Brooklyn for doctors’ visits, summer vacations, ripe plantains — every excuse in the book.” She has written for many magazines, including
Entertainment Weekly,
Seventeen,
Vibe,
Cosmo Girl!, Essence,
Heart & Soul,
and
Trace
magazine in London. Debbie is also the author of
Perfect Shot,
a novel for teens, and lives in Bermuda.

FRANCISCO X. STORK
works in Boston as a lawyer for a state agency that develops affordable housing. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico, to Ruth Arguelles, a single mother from a middle-class family in Tampico, a city on the Gulf of Mexico. He is the author of five novels:
The Way of the Jaguar,
Behind the Eyes,
Marcelo in the Real World,
The Last Summer of the Death Warriors,
and
Irises.
“Part of me left Mexico when I was nine, and part of me is still there,” says Francisco.

GENE LUEN YANG
is the author and illustrator of
American Born Chinese
and
Prime Baby,
and co-creator of
The Eternal Smile,
Level Up,
and
Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Promise.
He was born in the San Francisco Bay Area after his father emigrated from Taiwan and his mother from Hong Kong. “In fifth grade, my mother took me to our local bookstore, where she bought me my first Superman comic book,” he says, explaining his lifelong love of the genre. Yang attended the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in computer science with a minor in creative writing, and received his master’s in education from Cal State, Hayward, where he wrote his thesis on using comics in education. He teaches high school in the San Francisco Bay Area.

DAVID YOO
lived in Seoul, South Korea, from age three to eight, during which time he learned how to curse fluently in Korean. From eight years old to now, he is a lifelong New Englander, and the author of
The Detention Club, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before, Girls for Breakfast,
and, most recently, a collection of essays for adults,
The Choke Artist: Confessions of a Chronic Underachiever.
He teaches in the MFA program at Pine Manor College and has a column in
KoreAm Journal,
in which he says he “recounts the stupidest thing he did the previous month.”