Born and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, Kaija Langley has been writing since she fell in love with words at age seven. She knew she was onto something when she wrote her first poem and her grade school classmates thought she’d copied it from a book! A proud alumna of Morgan State University, a historically black college and university in Baltimore, Maryland, she received her MFA in fiction from St. Mary’s College of California in 2005. She’s called many places home over the years—New Jersey, Maryland, DC, California, Louisiana—and currently lives, writes, and plays in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her two bonsai and her beloved.

TeMika Grooms is an Atlanta-based artist and art activist who illustrated Save the Crash-test Dummies by Jennifer Swanson, Nana’s Favorite Things by Dorothy H. Price, and A Century for Caroline by Kaija Langley. She is the founder and program coordinator for KidsLitATL, a grassroots organization supporting a diverse group of creators in Atlanta, Georgia, where she lives with her cat, Nina Simone, and her two daughters, who she affectionately calls Thing One and Thing Two. You can visit her online at TeMikatheArtist.com.