Ezra Jack Keats Honor winner Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie is an interdisciplinary artist with a doctorate in performance studies from Brown University. In addition to her award-winning picture book Layla's Happiness , she has authored several collections of poetry and has performed poetry and taught in the United States, Namibia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and England. She was born and raised in Queens, New York, and her journeys across the borough inspired the writing of her second picture book We Go Slow . She now resides in Rhode Island and is the mother of three galaxies who look like daughters. Mirlande Jean-Gilles is a mother of two, a writer, and a visual artist. Her award-winning fiction and poetry have been published in various literary journals and anthologies. Her vibrant collages are inspired by her Haitian heritage as well as the work of women and mothers all over the world. In 2012 Jean-Gilles was selected to be "Bearden 100" in collaboration with the Romare Bearden Foundation.

Her artwork has been exhibited at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of their Caribbean History Month celebration. She was part of the group exhibition Cover to Cover--20 years at African Voices , a group art show that took place at the legendary Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. She also took part in Legacy of Romare , a group art show that paid tribute to the extraordinary art of Romare Bearden. In August 2015 she exhibited in a group art show celebrating Haitain art at the Kenkeleba Gallery in New York City.