Samara Cole Doyon is a poet and award-winning children’s book author with Haitian roots, living on unceded Wabanaki / Abenaki territory. She is a neurodivergent mother of neurodivergent children, continually learning more from her progeny than they could ever learn from her. Samara earned both a Lupine Award and an International Literacy Association Award for her debut picture book, Magnificent Homespun Brown. Each of her books has received the coveted starred designation in prepublication review from Kirkus, and her most recent picture book, Next Level, was a runner up for the Best Black Joy category in the 2024 Black Kidlit Awards. She works for Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and lives with her husband, two children, rescue pup, and tabby cat in central Maine.Daniel Minter is a painter, illustrator, and educator whose body of work explores the themes of displacement and the (re)creation of meanings of home. His children’s book illustrations have won awards including the distinguished Caldecott Medal Honor and the Coretta Scott King Illustration Honor. Daniel is a co-founder of the Maine Freedom Trails, which helps highlight African American history and the abolitionist movement in New England. He is also the co-founder of the Indigo Arts Alliance—a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating the artistic development of Black and Brown artists from around the globe—and its annual Ashley Bryan Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival.