Alvin Schwartz was born April 25, 1927.Schwartz began his career as a journalist, but, after the publication of his bestselling book A Twister of Twists, a Tangler of Tongues, he devoted himself to becoming a collector and arranger of folk wisdom, rhyme, and silliness. Schwartz is known for a body of work of more than two dozen books of folklore for young readers that explore everything from wordplay and humor to tales and legends of all kinds.
Judith Kinter is a freelance writer and poet. Her poetry has been included in a Random House anthology of Halloween poems. This is Ms. Kinter's first book for Clarion. She lives in Sacramento, California.Illustrator Dirk Zimmer was born in Goslar, Germany on October 2, 1943. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg. He worked as a painter during the German avant-garde movement and then went into filmmaking. In the late 1970s, he began working as an illustrator for numerous publications including Crawdaddy, the New York Times, and New York Magazine. He illustrated about 40 children's books between 1978 and 2008. He is best known for illustrating In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary… Stories by Alvin Schwartz, Bony-Legs by Joanna Cole, The One That Got Away by Percival Everett, and Seven Spiders Spinning by Gregory Maguire. He also wrote a book entitled Egon. He died on September 26, 2008 at the age of 64.