Melba Escobar is a Colombian author and journalist. Her debut Spanish-language children’s book, Johnny, the Sea, and Me, was selected for the 2015 White Ravens catalog as an outstanding international book by the International Youth Library. Escobar lives in Barcelona with her husband and two children, and writes for El País and Colombia’s El Tiempo.

Elizabeth Builes is a Colombian illustrator who won the Tragaluz Illustration Award in 2013 and went on to receive worldwide recognition for the original Colombian edition of Johnny, the Sea and Me in 2015.

Sara Lissa Paulson is a translator of Spanish and Latin American poetry, picture books, and middle grade fiction. Her first translation, Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions, illustrated by Paloma Valdivia, was selected as a New York Times Best Children’s Book of 2022.