Phyllis Root is the author of more than forty books, including Creak! Said the Bed and Lily and the Pirates, both named in Smithsonian’s 2010 Notable Books for Children; Aunt Nancy and Old Man Trouble, winner of a Minnesota Book Award; Big Momma Makes the World, winner of the Boston Globe Horn Book Award; and, published by Minnesota, Plant a Pocket of Prairie and One North Star, both winners of the John Burroughs Riverby Award, and Searching for Minnesota’s Native Wildflowers. She was awarded a 2006 McKnight Fellowship for Lucia and the Light. She has taught at the Loft and currently teaches in Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.

Betsy Bowen has written and illustrated numerous children’s books, including Helen Hoover’s Great Wolf and the Good Woodsman (Minnesota, 2005) and Phyllis Root’s Big Belching Bog (Minnesota, 2010), Plant a Pocket of Prairie (Minnesota, 2014), and One North Star (Minnesota, 2016). She lives in Grand Marais, Minnesota.