Maira Kalman is a celebrated artist, designer, dancer, storyteller and the co-creator of Why We Broke Up, a Printz Honor award-winning title, and author of Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of John J. Harvey, and the illustrator of Kirsten Gillibrand's New York Times bestseller Bold & Brave: Ten Heroes Who Won Women the Right to Vote.

Her accomplishments are vast: She has published many books for children and adults, performed her work as an opera and as a dance, she has designed fabric, makeup colors and theatre sets. She has a show upcoming at the Eric Carle Museum celebrating her work and is currently collaborating on a piece with Mikhail Baryshnikov. She currently lives in New York City.