Patricia C. McKissack (1944–2017) was an award-winning author who came from a family of skilled storytellers who taught her to listen and observe and who encouraged her lifelong love affair with words. The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural was a 1993 Newbery Honor Book, and Pat received the Coretta Scott King Author Award for it. She also frequently collaborated on books with her husband, Fredrick.

Pat wished she could have talked to her hero, Frederick Douglass, about his rise from slavery, his daring escape, and freedom—at last! If she had not been an author, she would have liked to have been an interior designer or an architect so she could have told stories through design.