Ann Nolan Clark was born on Christmas Day in 1898. She graduated from New Mexico's Highlands University, intending to be a teacher. In 1920, she began teaching at a government school for Indian children, eventually working with the Tesugue Pueblo Indians. Realizing that the school was underfunded, she and her students worked on fifteen books published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, including The Singing Sioux Cowboy Reader and The Pine Ridge Porcupine, all of which were bilingual, having the Indian and English versions side-by-side. In the 1940s, Clark worked on classroom materials for the Institute of Inter-American Affairs in Central and South America. In 1953, Clark won the Newbery Award for Secret of the Andes. She passed away in 1995 at the age of 97.

—Vicki Palmquist