About the Author and Illustrator:

Sarah Kay collects stories. Born and raised in New York City, Sarah began performing her poetry when she was fourteen years old. She made herself a home at the Bowery Poetry Club, where she was adopted by an unruly family of poets. In 2004, Sarah founded Project V.O.I.C.E. (Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression) to encourage creative self-expression through Spoken Word Poetry. She has since performed and taught in venues and classrooms all over the world including the United Nations, where she was the featured poet for the launch of the 2004 World Youth Report. In 2006, Sarah joined the NYC Urbana Poetry Slam team for the National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas and was the youngest poet in the competition. That year, she was also featured on the sixth season of the television series Russell Simmons presents HBO Def Poetry Jam. In 2011, Sarah was a featured speaker at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California, where she performed her poem, “B.” In between being a vagabond poet, Sarah can be found writing postcards, making documentary videos, and craving smoothies.

Sophia Janowitz spends most of her time making things. Over the past year, she has worked on a range of projects in theater, film, TV, stop-motion animation, and education. Most recently, she created props and sets with the production company Giants Are Small for The Cunning Little Vixen with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, and she helped build immersive sets for Punchdrunk’s Off-Broadway production of Sleep No More. In 2010, Sophia collaborated on the shooting, editing, and writing of the feature-length film, The Student Body. Her illustrations have been featured in Yale University’s Manifesta magazine and The Yale Daily News. Twice a day, Sophia can be found drawing people on the New York City subway.

Sarah and Sophia have been friends since they were three months old. Once, at age four, they were put in timeout for finger-painting all over the white wall of Sophia’s bedroom.

It was worth it.