Susan Apps-Bodilly is a retired elementary and middle-school educator. She is the author of One Room Schools: Stories from the Days of 1 Room, 1 Teacher, 8 Grades and Seeds in Soil: Planting a Garden and Finding Your Roots, as well as coauthor with Jerry Apps of Old Farm Country Cookbook, all published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

Jerry Apps is a well-known rural historian and professor emeritus for the College of Agriculture and Life Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of more than fifty books for adults and children, including Wisconsin Agriculture: A History; Garden Wisdom: Lessons Learned from 60 Years of Gardening; and When the White Pine was King: A History of Lumberjacks, Log Drives, and Sawdust Cities in Wisconsin, from which Timber! is loosely adapted. He and his wife, Ruth, divide their time between their home in Madison and their family tree farm, Roshara, in Waushara County.