Sonia Nash Gupta
Sonia Nash Gupta is a marketing executive with a track record in growing audiences and revenue. She currently leads content and product marketing at Consumer Reports. Prior to that, Sonia held multiple roles at Penguin Random House. She led digital marketing programs to promote award-winning authors and illustrators.
Sonia received her B.A. from Northwestern University and completed the Yale University Leadership Strategies Publishing Course. A former teacher, Sonia continues to dedicate time to emerging readers.
Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett
Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett is the founder of Miss Panda Chinese, an online Chinese language, and cultural resource that provides engaging and playful communicative teaching materials for parents and educators. She has been teaching Chinese and ESL for over 15 years and has extensive international teaching experience with children in Canada, Ecuador, Morocco, Taiwan, and the United States.
Amanda is registered and director-qualified with Hawai’i Careers With Young Children (PATCH), and received the highest possible score on the Chinese Proficiency Test administered by the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. She is a member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Amanda graduated from Shih Hsin University and The University of Texas at Austin.
Her website is Miss Panda Chinese. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Maritza Martinez Mejia
Maritza Martinez Mejia is a Colombian poet, translator, speaker, theologian, and publisher. She resides in Florida.
She is the founder of Proyecto de Escritura LuzDelMes, which creates bridges of communication and collaboration between authors around the world. She is also the cultural Promoter of “Desayuno Literario Internacional LuzDelMes” and Tri-Anthology LuzDelMes. For her service to the community, she won the Crystal Apple Award in 2006. Maritza also received the Virtues Christian Poetry Award in 2015, and the Latino Book Award for Best Translation of English to Spanish in 2016. Maritza was nominated to the Carmen Luisa Pinto in 2016 and is the recipient of “Premio Verso Dorado” for her environmental work through poetry with LuzDelMes.
She has published ten bilingual books published: Hazel Eyes (2010), Vanilla and Chocolate (2012), Grandma’s Treasure (2014), Poems, Thoughts and more (2015), Ojos Avellana (2016), Luz del mes (2018), Luz Del Mes Tri-Anthology (2019-2020), The Purple Shell (2021) and In Him, I Rest (2022).
She graduated from Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca in Commerce and Foreign Language, A.S. in Travel Industry Management from Broward State College, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in Humanities and Certificate in Women’s Studies from Florida Atlantic University. She also received her master’s degree in theology and educational Ministry at Catholic Distance University.
Maritza is transitioning to Multicultural Children’s Book Day’s Board of Trustees, is a Member of the Florida Writers’ Association, an Ambassador for Read to Me! Day, and a member of Academia Norteaméricana de Literatura Moderna Internacional, Florida.
Connect with Maritza M. Mejia: Blog: LuzDelMes, Facebook: LuzDelMes, Twitter: LuzDelMes, Instagram: LuzDelMes, Pinterest: LuzDelMes, LinkedIn: Maritza Martinez Mejia, YouTube: LuzDelMes, Website, and Amazon Author Page.
Maritza writes to inspire others to be their best selves.
Nina Trieu Tarnay
Nina Trieu Tarnay is an attorney, a mother of three, an avid reader, and an ardent supporter of social justice causes. Nina was inspired to join the Multicultural Children’s Book Day Board of Trustees after learning about its mission and reach. As a former Boat Person and refugee from Vietnam, Nina’s transition from “immigrant” to “full-fledged American” was not always smooth and she often felt like an outsider looking in. Growing up, Nina found that a lack of representation in the shows she watched and the stories she read made it difficult for her to reconcile the way she experienced life and the way she saw it portrayed. It wasn’t until college, when Nina minored in Women’s Studies with an emphasis in literature written by people of color, that she felt her experience and voice were part of the American tapestry.
Once Nina had children (who are ½ Vietnamese, ¼ Hungarian, and ¼ Irish), she worked to ensure that her children were exposed to books and shows that reflect the diversity of their background and experiences. She is excited to join with others who recognize the importance of representation and inclusion. She is enthusiastic about promoting the breadth of diverse books through MCBD to ensure that every child finds characters with whom they identify and stories with which they connect and grow.
Nina received her undergraduate degree in Political Science and Women’s Studies from UCLA and law degree from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. Nina works with water resources non-profits and spends her spare time volunteering and fundraising for numerous causes, including the American Heart Association, Providence Little Company of Mary in Torrance, CA, social activism groups, and her children’s schools.
You can find her on Twitter.
Nina’s publications include:
She spent six weeks on a fishing boat to escape her homeland on CNN
We left my little brother and a world behind us when we escaped Vietnam by boat on CNN
Fleeing Saigon: A Country Lost, A Country Gained on NCB News
What Kind Of Mother? This Kind Of Mother. on Scary Mommy
My Turn: Former refugee recalls her journey out of war-torn Vietnam on The Daily Breeze
Jessica Tranchino
Jessica Tranchino is edtech leader with expertise across operations management, implementation and customer success, and product strategy. She spent 10+ years at Curriculum Associates, a leading publisher of K-12 blended learning programs, building the services organization to drive impact for 11 million students nationwide. As a biracial mother of two, Jessica seeks diversity in children’s books that reflect her core values of equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Jessica received her MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University and AB in Mathematics from Dartmouth College.
Mia Wenjen
Mia Wenjen is half Japanese & half Chinese American and married to a Korean American. This unusual ethnic combination made her seek out all kinds of Asian representation in children’s books for her three kids. She started a blog, PragmaticMom.com, to share her favorite books, and the nonprofit, Read Your World Celebrates Multicultural Children’s Book Day, to celebrate diverse KidLit. She is also the co-founder of Aquent, the global leader in talent and recruiting for marketing, creative, and design, which began as a dorm room start-up more than 35 years ago.
Her debut picture book, Sumo Joe (Lee and Low, 2019) was selected as a Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year. She wrote Asian Pacific American Heroes for Scholastic (2020) and Changing the Game: Asian Pacific American Female Athletes as a Kickstarter pandemic project. It will also be reprinted by Scholastic beginning in June of 2023.
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World came out May 23, 2023 through Barefoot Books. We Sing from the Heart: How the Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court (Red Comet Press) and Boxer Baby (Eifrig Publishing) releases in 2024. Postcards from Malcolm X: How Yuri Kochiyama Became a Civil Rights Activist (Red Comet Press) releases in 2025. Follow her @pragmaticmom on social media.
She has an AB in History and Science, cum laude, from Harvard University, an M.B.A. from UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, and an Executive Education NMSDC Advanced Management Education Program from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
