Mary Mercier was born in 1951 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA). She has been writing all her life and her published work includes essays, poetry, and fiction. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals and her chapbook, Small Acts, was published by Parallel Press. Writing is her vocation but when she is not writing, she is tending her garden and her website at marymercier.com. She lives with her husband and two itinerant cats in Madison, Wisconsin.

Belle Machiels (Belgium, 1999) discovered her passion for drawing at a young age when she moved to Norway with her family in 2005. Here she grew up in a small village surrounded by forests and mountains. The mythical Norwegian nature inspired her to create magical and dreamlike worlds. She was also fascinated by children's book illustrations and animated films. In 2015, she moved to live with her father, who was living in Belgium at the time. Here, she further developed her drawing style and studied art at secondary school in Hasselt. She then studied animated film at Luca School of Arts, but after graduating, she decided to focus on illustration instead. Since 2022, she has been living and working in Norway, in the place where she grew up as a child.