Marilyn Nelson is a three-time National Book Award finalist, has won a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and several Coretta Scott King Honors, and has received several prestigious poetry awards, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Poets' Prize, and the Robert Frost Medal "for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry."

Philemona Williamson is a fine artist whose paintings have been exhibited in many museums and galleries, including the Montclair Art Museum, University of North Carolina, and Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts. She has received a number of awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She lectures at universities and teaches for Doing Art Together, a nonprofit arts education program. Less