Wait 'Til You're Older

Maria Marianayagam is a Tamil Sri Lankan-Canadian picture book and middle-grade author. She was born in India and grew up in Nigeria and four provinces across Canada. Maria is a former chemical engineer who fell in love with children’s books (again!) after becoming an Amma (mom). Maria enjoys writing lyrical picture books centered on STEM, faith, and South Asian culture, as well as high concept middle-grade grounded in culture. When Maria is not writing, she can be found traveling the world, devouring books, and spending time with her wonderful family. She resides in Alberta, Canada, with her husband and two daughters. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @MSMarianayagam.

My name is Irina Avgustinovich and I am a children's book illustrator from Belarus now based in Portugal. Despite having a bachelor's degree in classical painting and ceramics, I found myself in children's illustration many years ago. Teaching children to draw, sewing toy bunnies - all this was my job once, one way or another, I surrounded myself with the world of childhood. Now, as my 6-year-old son is growing up next to me, I am so happy to be involved in this wonderful world of childhood, spontaneity, and eternal creativity. I learn from him his outlook on life, lack of boundaries and freedom of expression. I believe in the power of imagination, I love creating new worlds on paper and my tablet and living the lives and emotions of my characters. I love humour in illustrations, lightness, the play of textures of materials, with light and colour. I am infinitely happy to work for children, I consider it a great privilege. For 15 years in illustration, I have created about 50 books for the Russian book market. A couple of books with my illustrations have already been published for the British market, and several more are being prepared for publication.