Marni McGee grew up in North Carolina and graduated from UNC, Chapel Hill with 'Highest Honours in English' and from Yale with an MA in Religion. She has treasured books and words ever since childhood. Marni now lives in Santa Barbara, California with her husband. Alison Edgson was born in County Down and studied Visual Communication at the University of Ulster. After graduating with a First, she and her husband Jeff moved to an old chapel in the Usk Valley in Wales, where she works full-time as an illustrator.