Marilyn Singer was born in the Bronx, New York, on October 3, 1948, and lived most of her early life in North Massapequa on Long Island. She attended Queens College, City University of New York as an English major and education student, and for her junior year, attended Reading University, in England. She holds a bachelor's degree in English from Queens and a MA in Communications from New York University. Marilyn Singer had been teaching English in New York City high schools for several years when she began writing in 1974. Initially, she wrote film notes, catalogues, teacher's guides and filmstrips. She also began looking into magazine writing. Her article proposals were not very… successful, but she did manage to have some of her poetry published. Then one day she penned a story featuring talking insects she'd made up when she was eight. Encouraged by the responses she got, she wrote more stories and in 1976 her first book, The Dog Who Insisted He Wasn't, was published. Since then, Marilyn has published more than 50 books for children and young adults. In addition to a rich collection of fiction picture books, Singer has also produced a wide variety of nonfiction works for young readers as well as several poetry volumes in picture book format. Additionally, Singer has edited volumes of short stories for young adult readers, including Stay True: Short Stories for Strong Girls and I Believe in Water: Twelve Brushes with Religion.
Emily Arnold McCully, Author and illustrator Emily McCully was born in Galesburg, Illinois and raised on Long Island. Her father Wade was a writer of network radio shows and her mother Kathryn was a teacher. When she was a child, she began writing and illustrating her own stories, bound them and gave them a copyright date. She also illustrated postcards, greeting cards, scenery, portraits and copies of the old masters and would then set up a stand at the end of her driveway to sell them. McCully attended Pembroke University studying theater and art history. After graduation, McCully held a variety of odd jobs in the art field that included being a commercial artist, a designer of paperback… covers and illustrating advertisements. When one of her illustrations was seen on an advertisement in the subway, she was asked to illustrate Greg Panetta's "Sea Beach Express." She accepted that offer and went on to illustrate over 100 children's books. In 1969, she illustrated de Jong's "Journey from the Peppermint Express," which was the first children's book to receive the National Book Award. McCully had her first solo venture with "Picnic," which is a wordless picture book about a family of mice, and it won the Christopher Award in 1985. "Mirette on the High Wire" introduced the dare devil tightrope walker, Mirette, and won the Caldecott Medal in 1993. Some of her other titles in include "Amazing Felix," "Crossing the New Bridge," "Grandmas at the Lake," "My Real Family," and "Pirate Queen."