Meg Medina, named one of CNN s Ten Visionary Women, is the author of the young adult novel Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, which received a Pura Belpre Award in 2014. She is also the author of the novel The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind and the picture books Mango, Abuela, and Me and Tia Isa Wants a Car, for which she won an Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award. Meg Medina was raised in Queens, New York, where she lived in 1977, one of the worst years in the city s history. About Burn Baby Burn, she says, While telling Nora s story, I was writing about violence at the tipping point, both in a city and in a family. Young people then and now sometimes have to grow up against a backdrop of unspeakable events. Their fight for hope, respect, and happiness always amazes me. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her family.