Audrey Penn is the author of the NY Times bestseller, The Kissing Hand, and its sequels, along with a middle reader series, The Blackbeard Quartet. A former ballerina, Penn takes her one-woman educational program into schools, libraries, and children's hospitals, where she shapes and refines her story ideas in partnership with kids. A long-time resident of the Washington, D.C. area, she is a sought-after speaker for groups of teachers and other professionals who work with children. Award winning illustrator Barbara Leonard Gibson has been a freelance artist in the Baltimore-Washington area for 25 years. Oringally from New York, and with a degree in Fine Art and Design from Carnegie Mellon University, she has worked extensively in many areas, including historical illustration, children's books and magazines, cartooning, portraiture, wildlife illustrations, natural sciences, advertising, fantasy, and science fiction. This is her fifth collaboration with Audrey Penn, with whom she has tea every Thursday afternoon.

Both live in Olney, MD.