Daniel Nayeri was born in Iran and spent a couple of years as a refugee before immigrating to Oklahoma at age eight with his family. He is the publisher of Odd Dot, an imprint of Macmillan, making him one of the youngest publishers in the industry. He has served on the CBC diversity committee and the CBC panel committee.

Vesper Stamper was born in Nuremberg, Germany and raised in New York City to a family that was an eclectic mix of engineers, musicians and artists. She has a BFA in Illustration from Parsons and an MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts.

Her debut illustrated YA novel, What the Night Sings, about the post-Holocaust period, was a National Book Award Nominee, a Morris Award Finalist, a Golden Kite Honor Book, and the Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner, and was named a Best YA Book of 2018 by The Wall Street Journal and Kirkus. She lives with her husband, filmmaker Ben Stamper, and her two children, in the Northeast.