
NOMINATIONS:
Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave (Delacorte Press), Middle Grade Novel, 2025
BIO: Ally Russell is the author of It Came from the Trees, the Mystery James series, Down Came the Spiders, and Book of Outcasts (Wednesday). She grew up on a steady diet of Halloween parties, horror films, Unsolved Mysteries, and Goosebumps books. She has always loved scary stories, and got her MFA from Simmons University and, eventually, a job working in children’s publishing. She hails from Pittsburgh—ground zero for the zombie apocalypse. Ally lives with her husband and her two black cats, Nox and Fury. She’s afraid of the woods, the dark, and heights.

