James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier were born into a family of writers. Their father, Edmund Collier, was an author of children's books, and their uncle Slater Brown was a novelist and the hero of E. E. Cummings's The Enormous Room (1922). Their aunt Susan Jenkins Brown authored a biography, and their cousin Gwilym Brown was a long-time Sports Illustrated staff writer. Their ancestors include the colonial diarist Samuel Sewall and the seventeenth-century poet Anne Bradstreet. Their grandmother was courted by nineteenth-century author Henry David Thoreau.

The Colliers work well together, with few conflicts in their writing relationship, because their individual roles in creating books are clearly defined. James develops the story, language, and structure, while Christopher researches the historical era and adds detail. My Brother Sam Is Dead, their first collaboration, was named a 1975 Newbery Honor Book and an American Library Association Notable Book...