Michel Pastoureau is a historian and director of studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes de la Sorbonne in Paris. A specialist in the history of colors, symbols, and heraldry, he is the author of many books, including Blue and Black (both Princeton) and The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages.

Jody Gladding is a poet and translator. She has published three full-length collections of poetry and translated nearly 30 books from French. Her awards and honors include MacDowell and Stegner Fellowships, a Whiting Writers' Award, and a Yale Younger Poets Prize. She lives in Vermont.