Home and the people who make it have captivated Lori McKenna for years. Over the last three decades, as she became a wife and mother of five, she has also emerged as one of the most respected, prolific singer-songwriters in popular music. Her 2016 release The Bird and the Rifle netted three GRAMMY nominations, along with Americana Music Association nods-all firsts for McKenna as an artist. Then, she made history: In 2016, she became the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association's Song of the Year two years in a row thanks to cowriting Little Big Town's "Girl Crush" and penning the number one hit song "Humble and Kind." Both songs also clinched back-to-back GRAMMY awards for Best Country Song. In 2017, she became the Academy of Country Music's first female Songwriter of the Year. The Tree, her much-anticipated eleventh studio album, was released on July 20, 2018, on CN Records via Thirty Tigers. Produced by Dave Cobb, The Tree, a 2019 Americana Awards Album of the Year nominee, takes one of McKenna's signature themes--family--and builds a tapestry of experiences she has lived and overheard, been told and dreamed up, to create a stunning ode to life's defining relationships.

Katherine Blackmore (illustrator) is a freelance artist with over twenty-five years experience as an illustrator, animator, and teacher. She has designed holiday products for American Greetings, animated on feature films for Disney, and currently teaches children in the Creative Core Art Program, which she founded. Along with teaching art, Blackmore creates art for kids and is a published illustrator of several children's picture books. She lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband, Eric, their three cats, and a tortoise named Walter.