Cory McCarthy writes books for children and young adults, including Man o' War, a Stonewall Honor Book; Breaking Sky, which was optioned by Sony Pictures; and the verse novel Name Me America, which won the middle-grade category of the 2014 Katherine Paterson Prize. They hold a degree in creative writing from Ohio University and an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Like Kahlil Gibran, their family emigrated from Lebanon and settled in New England. Cory McCarthy lives in Vermont with their family and is on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Ekua Holmes is the illustrator of numerous books for children, including Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford, for which she received several awards, including a Caldecott Honor, the John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor; Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets by Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley, and Marjory Wentworth, for which she received the 2018 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award; and The Stuff of Stars by Marion Dane Bauer, for which she received the 2019 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. Ekua Holmes lives in Boston.