Mary Lee Corlett is currently an art historian and research associate at the National Gallery of Art, with a career of more than twenty-five years in the museum world, beginning with her first job at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She moved to Washington D.C. in 1988 where, prior to her current work at the National Gallery, she held research positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. She hase written about numerous modern and contemporary American artists, including Romare Bearden, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Stackhouse. She has a life-long interest in children’s literature and began writing more seriously in the genre after her daughter was born. She became a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) in 2004.
Sophie Cayless is a freelance illustrator, and has drawn and painted all her life, earning a degree in illustration from the Cleveland Institute of Art and Case Western Reserve University. This involved art history classes taught and studio projects created in the Cleveland Museum of Art itself. She worked as a naturalist and park ranger, creating interpretive graphics and leading programs, and now teaches art. She enjoys the creativity of writing and illustrating children’s picture books, and serves in her local chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. Acrylic, colored pencil and scratchboard are some of her favorite media, especially used outside “en plein air”.
