Co-founder of ProgressiveKid, Sarah Lane is a writer, illustrator, and graphic designer. She has blogged extensively on environmental and social justice issues and been picked up by national publications, including Mother Earth News. She is co-author of the curriculum books The Cora: People of the Sierra Madre, Días de los Muertos/Days of the Dead, and Batz’i K’op: True Speech (published by AMIE). She illustrated A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids (Green Goat Books), A Story of Witchery (Les Figues Press), and Omiyage (AMIE), and she has designed and written copy for numerous websites. Sarah trained teachers  through the Chicago-based Associated Colleges of the Midwest Urban Education Program and taught English and writing to inner city high school and college students. She was Editorial Director of a textbook development company in Chicago and has over twenty years of experience editing and writing educational materials. She has an MFA in Writing from Antioch University and a BA in English with a Minor in Secondary English Education from Carleton College. Sarah grew up in Spain and is fluent in Spanish and French. At ProgressiveKid, she manages, illustrates, designs, wrangles technology, and writes for our website. She loves art projects with her daughter, fixing things, eating chocolate, laughing with her partner, and talking to birds.

Co-founder of ProgressiveKid, Julie Hall is the author of A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids: Understanding Climate Change and What You Can Do About It, as well as twelve other nonfiction books for children. She has over twenty years of experience as a writer and editor of curriculum; career, health, and travel books; business materials; and website copy. Her clients include Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Scholastic, A.C. Nielsen Company, University of Illinois, The Wright Group, and The Mountaineers Books. She was Editorial Coordinator at Rand McNally Company and Manager of Writing at PP/FA, an educational publisher in Chicago. Her essays on climate change have been carried by Reuter’s and The Chicago Sun Times. Her poetry has won grants and awards and appeared in anthologies and magazines, including The Nation, The Threepenny Review, and Bloom. Julie has a BA in English from Northwestern University and an MFA in Writing from Goddard College. A resident of an island near Seattle, she loves biking, hiking, cooking simple fresh food, smelling the roses with her partner and daughter, and being walked by their greyhound/lab dog. She manages, writes, edits, researches, photographs, and designs for our website.

Randi Hacker has worked as a personal assistant to the stars, publisher, educator, editor, librarian, author and video store clerk. Back in the 20th Century, she was the editor of The Electric Company Magazine published by Children’s Television Workshop. Then, in 1989, she had the idea to start her own kidmag and so, with her partner, Jackie Kaufman, she created, wrote, edited and published P3, the Earth-based Magazine for Kids. P3 was dedicated to empowering kids to save their home planet. By its third issue, P3 enjoyed an international readership of all ages and inspired kids all over the world to take action and work on behalf of the Earth. P3 folded in 1991 when idealism (Randi’s) clashed with business reality (theirs) and idealism lost. Sigh. Thanks to ProgressiveKid, P3, whose message is still as relevant as ever, is enjoying a reincarnation here on the web. Randi is also the author of How to Live Green, Cheap and Happy which can be ordered through ProgressiveKid. At the moment, Randi lives the green, cheap and happy lifestyle in Lawrence, Kansas, with her 13-year-old daughter.

A four-time Emmy Award-winning writer for “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” Lynn Brunelle has over 20 years experience writing. Previously a classroom science, English and art teacher for kids K-12, an editor, illustrator, and award-winning author of over 40 titles, Lynn has created, developed, and written projects for Chronicle, Workman, National Geographic, Scholastic, Random House, Penguin, A&E, The Discovery Channel, Disney, ABC TV, NPR, The Annenburg Foundation, World Almanac, Cranium and PBS. She started writing for children while working as an editor at Scientific American Books for Young Readers (and later at Workman), where she identified a need for more fun and genuinely appealing science books for kids, and started writing them herself. “I want people to be using my books to learn for fun,” she has said. “I love the idea of igniting a passion in kids and adults.”  Since leaving New York for the Seattle area, Brunelle’s educational projects range across all media from Cranium board games and the popular Brainquest series to Pop Bottle Science and “Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe,” a new PBS television series which won the American Broadcasting Award last year.  She has recently written a series of lively animated interstitial songs for All Terrain Brain (allterrainbrain.com) from Three Chicks Media and the Kauffman Foundation that introduce entrepreneurial concepts to kids in a fun and accessible way. A regular contributor to NPR’s Science Friday Kids’ Connection, she has also written for several children’s and parenting magazines. She lives on an evergreen encrusted island near Seattle with her adorable husband, two wonderful sons, two sassy cats and an enthusiastic dog. Books by Lynn Brunelle: Why Did I Buy This Book—Puzzlers and Brainteasers to Keep Your (adult) Brain Sharp, Zoo’s Shoes (Workman Publishing), Camp Out (Workman Publishing), Pop Bottle Science (Workman Publishing), World Almanac for Kids Puzzler Decks (Chronicle Books), Mama’s Little Book of Tricks (Chronicle Books), Yoga For Chickens (Chronicle Books).

Dani Hemmat is a writer and educator who has also worked as a copywriter & editor, journalist, cook, jeweler, baker, but not yet as a candlestick maker. She imagines that’s not so far-fetched of a job goal, though. Her work has appeared in The JT News, Sistah Magazine, First Teacher, and Wild Catch, and she writes grants for non-profit organizations. She has taught Jewish education and baby sign languageand is hard-at-work on her soon-to-be-launched site thejewishcowgirl.com. Dani really likes strange things, including creatures that are often maligned or misunderstood, like spiders, bats, and pigeons. She lives on an island in Puget Sound with her one wonderful, wacky husband and two wonderful, wacky kids who happen to like those strange things as much as she does. Three dogs, one cat and a pond full of fish get a more-than-honorable mention.