Middle Grade Panel with Caroline Carlson, Ally Russell, and Karuna Riazi
Schedule
Sat Nov 22 2025 at 02:00 pm to 03:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
Riverstone Books | Pittsburgh, PA
About this Event
Authors Caroline Carlson, Ally Russell, and Karuna Riazi join us to talk about their middle grade books! Following the talk, there will be Q&A time with the audience and book signing with each author. All ages welcome!
Order The Tinkerers .
Order Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave .
Order Sabrena Swept Away .
About Caroline Carlson:
Caroline Carlson is the author of funny and fantastical books for young readers, including The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy, The World’s Greatest Detective, The Door at the End of the World, and Wicked Marigold. Her novels have won accolades from the New York Times, the American Booksellers Association, Bank Street College of Education, the American Library Association, and Junior Library Guild, among others. She is the children’s book columnist for the website Literary Hub.
Caroline holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her family.
About Ally Russell:
Ally is the author of It Came from the Trees, Book of Outcasts (Wednesday), Down Came the Spiders, and Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave. 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.
About Karuna Riazi:
Karuna Riazi is a born and raised New Yorker, with a loving, large extended family and the rather trying experience of being the eldest sibling in her particular clan. She holds a BA in English Literature from Hofstra University, an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University, and is currently a PhD candidate in Children’s Literature at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of The Gauntlet (S&S/Salaam Reads, 2017), The Battle (S&S/Salaam Reads, 2019), Ghostwriter: The Jungle Book (Sourcebooks Wonderland/Sesame Workshop, 2019), and A Bit of Earth (HarperCollins/Greenwillow Books, 2023). Her latest middle grade novel, Sabrena Swept Away, released from HarperCollins/Greenwillow Books in July 2025.
Where is it happening?
Riverstone Books, 5841 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00
