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Mihi Ever After
Athletes Who Changes the Game
Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun
The Intersectional environmentalist
Mananaland
Maribel versus the volcano
black love matters
Field notes
Topographies of whiteness

Hannah Gómez, PhD

Senior Editor and Director of Cultural Accuracy Department
Bestselling children's and YA editor

As the publishing industry’s first-ever in-house Director of Cultural Accuracy and Sensitivity Editorial Services, Dr. Hannah Gómez leads and manages our cultural accuracy and sensitivity editing (CASE) services (also commonly referred to as sensitivity or authenticity reading). Her role includes developing and managing a robust community of cultural accuracy and sensitivity editors, training people to perform this unique type of editorial work, and collaborating with authors, publishers, and literary agents to improve the quality and inclusivity of their books before they go to market. Her role and insights as Director of Cultural Accuracy and Sensitivity Editorial Services have been featured featured in the New York Times, Le Monde M, and USA Today, and she is also a contributing author to Publishers Weekly’s Book Publishing Almanac 2022: A Master Class in the Art of Bringing Books to Readers.

Hannah also serves as children’s and YA specialist for KAA; as a Senior Editor she has served as developmental editor and book coach for clients seeking to write for young people. An experienced and versatile editor with more than a decade of professional experience, Hannah’s clients include a wide range of notable authors and Big-5 publishers, including Simon & Schuster, TOR, Hachette, HarperCollins, American Girl/Mattel, Penguin Random House, and Charlesbridge. She has collaborated with bestselling and award-winning authors like Julie Berry (Lovely War), Kristin Cashore (Winterkeep), Mark Oshiro (Anger Is a Gift), and Laura Ruby (The Shadow Cipher), among many others. As an audiobook proofreader, she has established herself as the point person for accents, dialect, and foreign language pronunciation.

After receiving her Master of Arts in Children’s Literature and Master of Library Science degrees at Simmons University, she worked as a school librarian for two years. She then pivoted into creative, editorial, ghostwriting, and advocacy work in and around the publishing industry, with roles at organizations like the Tucson Festival of Books, LA Times Book Prize, We Need Diverse Books, Book Riot, Scholastic Audio, and EBSCO Information Services. Her work has been translated to Swedish and Spanish.

Hannah earned her PhD in Language, Reading, and Culture (with a minor in Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory) from the University of Arizona. She has served as adjunct faculty at Emporia State University and Simmons University in addition to teaching at UArizona. Learn more about her in her media kit.

Selected Publications*

Children’s/YA

  • CASE Editor, Fearless Firsts: Geniuses Who Changed How We Live by James Buckley Jr. and Ellen Labrecque (Sourcebooks eXplore, 2026)
  • CASE Editor, Fearless Firsts: Artists Who Changed Entertainment by James Buckley Jr. and Ellen Labrecque (Sourcebooks eXplore, 2025)
  • CASE Editor, Fearless Firsts: Athletes Who Changed the Game by James Buckley Jr. and Ellen Labrecque (Sourcebooks eXplore, 2024)
  • CASE Editor, Mihi Ever After by Tae Keller (Henry Holt BFYR, 2022)
  • CASE Editor, When You Joined Our Family by Harriet Evans (Little Tiger, 2022)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa (Skyscape, 2021)
    • Pura Belpré Honor Book
  • Sensitivity Editor, Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore (Dial/PRH, 2021)
  • Author, Girls Survive: Maribel Versus the Volcano (Stone Arch Press/Capstone, 2020)
  • Sensitivity Editor, A Kid of Their Own by Megan Dowd Lambert (Charlesbridge, 2020)
  • Sensitivity Editor, A Smart Girl’s Guide: Making A Difference (American Girl/Mattel, 2020)
  • Audio QC, Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Scholastic, 2020)

    • New York Times Best 25 Books of the Year

  • Sensitivity Editor, Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys (original pub 2013, edited second edition paperback, 2020)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Lovely War by Julie Berry (Viking, 2019)
    • Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Winner, Audie Award, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, YALSA Amazing Audiobooks, and Goodreads Choice Award Nominee
  • Ghostwriter, JV Girls: Catching Confidence by Jake Maddox (Stone Arch Press/Capstone, 2018)
  • Ghostwriter, JV Boys: Rookie Runner by Jake Maddox (Stone Arch Press/Capstone, 2018)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Anger Is a Gift by Mark Oshiro (Tor, 2018)
    • Schneider Family Award Winner and LAMBDA Literary Award finalist
  • Sensitivity Editor, The Way the Light Bends by Cordelia Jensen (Philomel/PRH, 2018)
  • Sensitivity Editor, The Length of a String by Elissa Brent Weissman (Dial, 2018)
    • Sydney Taylor Award Honor
  • Sensitivity Editor, York: The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins, 2017)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Pinch Me by Gabrielle S. Prendergast (Orca, 2017)
  • Sensitivity Editor, Zero Repeat Forever by Gabrielle S. Prendergast (Simon & Schuster, 2017)
  • Sensitivity Editor, The Authentics by Abdi Nazemian (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 2017)

Academic/scholarly

  • “Börden av att spegla” (“The Weight of Being a Mirror” translated to Swedish by Thord Erikkson (Biblioteks Bladet, 2021)
  • “The Weight of Being a Mirror: A Librarian’s Short Autobiography”, Topographies of Whiteness, edited by Gina Schlesselman-Tarango (Library Juice Press, 2017)
  • “Decolonizing Nostalgia” (The Horn Book Magazine, 2016)
  • “This, That, Both, Neither: The Badging of Biracial Identity in Young Adult Realism” (The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults, 2013)
    • Best Paper of the Year Winner

Narrative Nonfiction

  • CASE Editor, Shameful Silence: The Truth About Male Victims of Domestic Abuse by Alexandra Lozano (Wiley, 2026)
  • Contributor, “Romance Has Broken My Dichotomous Key”, Black Love Matters edited by Jessica P. Pryde (Berkley, 2022)
  • Line Editor, Inspiration for the Weary Therapist by David Klow (Routledge, 2022)
  • CASE Editor, The Intersectional Environmentalist by Leah Thomas (Voracious/Little, Brown, 2021)
  • Contributor, “What’s, Well, ‘Crazy’”, (Don’t) Call Me Crazy edited by Kelly Jensen (Algonquin Young Readers, 2018)
    • Spanish translation by María Celina Rojas for Spanish language edition (Argentina)

Memoir

  • Sensitivity Editor, My Broken Language by Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World, 2021)

Food/Cookbooks

  • CASE Editor, The Simple Comforts Step by Step Instant Pot Cookbook by Jeffrey Eisner (Voracious/Little Brown, 2022)
  • CASE Editor, Field Notes for Food Adventure by Brad Leone (Voracious/Little Brown, 2021)
    • NYT Bestseller, Food 52 Best Cookbook of the Year

Adult Fiction

  • Sensitivity Editor, The Throwback List by Lily Anderson (Hyperion Avenue, 2021)

Audiobook QC (all Scholastic)

  • Coming Up Cuban by Sonia Manzano (2022)

  • Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan (2020)

  • Illegal by Francisco X. Stork (2020)

  • Words on Fire by Jennifer A. Nielsen (2019)

  • Legends of the Sky: Dragon Daughter by Liz Flanagan (2019)

  • Revenge of the Invisible Boy (Goosebumps: SlappyWorld) by R.L. Stine (2019)

  • The Stars Below by David Baldacci (2019)

  • The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange (2017)

  • The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson (2017)

  • The Harlem Charade by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley (2017)

  • Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork (2017)

  • The Lines We Cross by Randa Abdel-Fattah (2017)

  • Tomb of the Khan (Assassin’s Creed: The Last Descendants) by Matthew J. Kirby (2016)

*Incomplete list. Many KAA clients are under NDA.