Jack Gantos, the 2010 ALAN award winner for his outstanding contributions to the field of adolescent literature, is the author of numerous books including the Rotten Ralph picture books illustrated by Nicole Rubel, the Jack Henry story collections, and the Joey Pigza series. The first Joey Pigza book, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, was a finalist for the National Book Award. The next, Joey Pigza Loses Control, was chosen as a Newbery Honor book. And Hole in My Life, Jack’s memoir for young adults, was chosen as both a Printz Honor book and a Sibert Honor book. Jack is on the road six months of the year, speaking at schools, libraries, and conferences around the world, and otherwise lives with his family and not-so-rotten cats in Boston, Massachusetts. His most recent books are the fourth Joey book, I Am Not Joey Pigza (FSG 2007); a Rotten Ralph picture book, The Nine Lives of Rotten Ralph (Houghton 2009), and the fifth in the Rotten Ralph Rotten Reader series, Three Strikes for Rotten Ralph (FSG 2011). A paperback reissue of the Joey Pigza series is forthcoming in the summer of 2011 from Square Fish Paperbacks, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.