Noboru Wada was born in Nagano, in central Japan. He graduated from Shinshu University and worked as a school teacher for 31 years. In 1977, he received the first Kenjiro Tsukahara Literary Award for his work The Fortress of Sorrow, which depicts Korean slave laborers forced to build a bunker for Japanese military officials during World War II. In 2005, he won the Sankei Award for his book Weapons Can't Save the Earth. In addition to anti-war and anti-discrimination children's books, he has written biographies, ghost stories and science fiction for children. From 2011 - 2017 he was director of the Kurohime Fairy Tales Museum in Nagano. Many of his books are illustrated by his daughter, Haruna Wada. The Snow Woman and Other Yokai Tales is his first work to be published in English.William Scott Wilson holds BAs from Dartmouth and The Monterey Institute and an MA from the University of Washington. His first trip to Japan in 1966 was to undertake a kayak trip funded by National Geographic Magazine, paddling 1200 miles through the Inland Sea from Shimonoseki to Tokyo. The story appeared in the September, 1967 issue. He has worked as a translator and cultural advisor for the Japanese Consul-General in Seattle, a teacher of Japanese language and social studies, and a guide for Japanese tourists. He has written over 20 books that have been translated into 21 languages. His first book, a translation of an 18th century treatise on Samurai philosophy, the Hagakure, was featured in the film Ghost Dog by director Jim Jarmusch. He was awarded a Commendation from the Foreign Ministry of Japan in 2005 and inducted into the Order of the Rising Sun in 2015.

"…these 79 brief glimpses into Japanese folk culture open a world of subtle strangeness." —Publishers Weekly