Michael Crummey is a poet, novelist, and short story writer from Newfoundland. His first novels, River Thieves (Doubleday, 2001) and The Wreckage (Doubleday, 2005) were each finalists for various prestigious literary awards. His third, Galore (Doubleday, 2009), won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book. His most recent novel Sweetland (Doubleday, 2014) was released in August.

Margaret Mackey is Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. She has published a wide variety of articles and chapters on the subject of young people's reading and their multimedia and digital literacies. Mackey's work is highly interdisciplinary; her numerous international presentations include talks on young people's literature, multimedia and adaptations, education and literacy, computer gaming, and more. Her interest in these topics was initiated during her youth in Newfoundland; although she grew up in the 1950s, her childhood experiences included a range of media that fed into her inveterate book-reading. She is now pursing questions about how children 's developing skills in processing a variety of media are affected by their geographic location and their understanding of landscapes, both real and fictional.

"Fiction writers influence the way people see the world around them. And with that influence comes authorial responsibility.... Crummey offers a double proviso to the debate over cultural appropriation. He recommends impatience with the blinkered novelist who doesn't deign to learn about the world he or she is describing. And perhaps more importantly, Crummey asks that a generous dose of tolerance, be given to that minority of one, the author, who is doing his or her best to tell us a story." -- Susan Swan -- Literary Review of Canada, 20190201