Shoham Smith was born in Jerusalem in 1966, grew up in the Jordan Valley and studied industrial design at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design at Tel Aviv University.An author of collections of short stories and children’s books, Smith received the 2009 Prime Minister’s Prize and is a two-time winner of the ACUM Award for Furthering the Publication of Children’s Books, in 2011 and 2015. Smith has also won the Devorah Omer Prize (2014) and the Lea Goldberg Prize in 2017, for _A Treasury of Hebrew Legends for Children_ and _My Aunt Lea Goldberg_ respectively. Smith lives in Tel Aviv and works as an author and translator. She lives with her partner and three children and teaches writing workshops.

Vali Mintzi was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1971, and made Aliyah to Israel in 1989. Mintzi graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem. In 2009, Mintzi began illustrating for children’s books with Who is the Fairy Queen and was awarded the Israel Museum Ben-Yitzhak Award for Illustrations of Children’s Books in 2012 for Little One in the Park. Mintzi is also a successful graphic designer, having previously been Art Director for Haaretz’s children’s magazine, Einayim, and worked at the Israel Museum. Mintzi currently lives in Jerusalem with her partner and three daughters, and works as an illustrator, graphic designer and puppetry designer.