Kwame Alexander has written seventeen books, owned several publishing companies, written for television (TLC's Hip Hop Harry), recorded a CD, performed around the world, produced jazz and book festivals, hosted a weekly radio show, worked for the U.S. government, and taught in a high school.

Recently Kwame was a visiting writer in Brazil and Africa. He resides in the Washington, DC, area, where he is the founding director of Book-in-a-Day (BID), a program that teaches and empowers teenagers to write and publish their own books.

The idea for He Said, She Said came during a writing workshop he conducted with thirty smart, funny, feisty, insecure, and ambitious young people in Charleston, South Carolina - which, by the way, is his favorite place on earth (behind Bahia, Accra, and Tuscany, of course).

Melissa Sweet is the Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator of many fine children's books including Some Writer!: The Story of E. B. White, winner of the NCTE Orbis Pictus award, Balloons Over Broadway, a Sibert winner, and The Right Word and A River of Words, both Caldecott Honors.

Reviewers have described her unique mixed-media illustrations as "exuberant," "outstanding," and "a creative delight."