Rhoda Levine is an acclaimed director, writer, choreographer, teacher, and the artistic director of Play It By Ear, an improvisational opera group. She is the recipient of the National Institute for Music Theater Award. Her children's books include He Was There from the Day We Moved In, Three Ladies Beside the Sea, and Arthur, all available from NYRB Kids.

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) was born in Chicago. In 1953 Gorey published The Unstrung Harp, the first of his more than one hundred books. In addition to illustrating his own stories, Gorey provided drawings for many books for both children and adults. Of these, New York Review Books has published From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey; The Haunted Looking Glass, a collection of Gorey’s favorite ghost stories; The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells; Men and Gods by Rex Warner; The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories by Saki; and Three Ladies Beside the Sea by Rhoda Levine. He cowrote the NYRB Kids book Fletcher and Zenobia with Victoria Chess.