Anna Sewell (1789-1884) was born in Norfolk, England, and was disabled much of her life due to an accident. Black Beauty is her only published novel. Jillian Tamaki is an illustrator and comic artist and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. She is the author of Gilded Lilies and Indoor Voice and the graphic novel Skim, a New York Times Best Book of the Year. Her drawings have appeared in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, The New Yorker, and Esquire. Jane Smiley is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and a critically acclaimed biography of Charles Dickens. In 2001 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in northern California.