Robert Kraus (center) was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where his first drawings appeared in the Milwaukee Journal when he was eleven years old. He studies  at the Layton School of Art, and later won a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York. During his career, he has done over five hundred cartoons and twenty-two covers for The New Yorker. He has written and illustrated a number of children's books, including Leo the Late Bloomer. He lives in New York City with his wife, Pamela.

Debby Chen (left) was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States in 1979. Since 1982, she has been living in San Jose, California, with her husband and two sons. She recently relinquished her successful twenty-year career as a reporter to pursue writing full-time. She is the author of several books for children, including a textbook used in Chinese schools throughout North America.

Wenhai Ma (right) is a set designer and assistant professor at Duke University. He has illustrated several children's books and one novel, and has held art exhibits in museums across China and the United States. Wenhai has been a Monkey King fan since childhood,  after seeing  a movie adaptation of this legend seven times when it first came to town. He began researching and preparing sketches for The Making of Monkey King over eight years ago.