Jordan Scott is a poet whose work includes Silt, Blert, DECOMP, and Night & Ox. Blert, which explores the poetics of stuttering, is the subject of two National Film Board of Canada projects, Flub and Utter: a poetic memoir of the mouth and STUTTER. Scott was the recipient of the 2018 Latner Writers' Trust Poetry Prize for his contributions to Canadian poetry. He is the author of I Talk Like a River, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. He lives in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island with his wife and two sons.

Sydney Smith is an illustrator of picture books whose work includes Jordan Scott's I Talk Like a River; Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson; The White Cat and the Monk by Jo Ellen Bogart; and Town Is by the Sea by Joanne Schwartz, which was awarded the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal and the 2018 Children's Literature Award. He wrote and illustrated Small in the City, which Kirkus Reviews called "Extraordinary, emotional, and beautifully rendered." in a starred review. School Library Journal said "The use of line, reflection, and perspective masterfully evoke a bustling gray city." in another starred review. Travis Jonker of 100 Scope Notes, a School Library Journal blog, said "Small in the City is one of my favorite books of 2019." His accolades include two Governor General's Awards for Illustrated Children's Books and four successive New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year citations.