Jan Slepian was born Janice Berek in New York City on January 2, 1921. She received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Brooklyn College and a master's in speech therapy from New York University. She worked as a speech therapist in hospitals. She was an author, essayist, and poet. She wrote books for children and young adults including The Alfred Summer, Lester's Turn, The Broccoli Tapes, Risk n' Roses, Pinocchio's Sister, and Emily Just in Time. Her collection of essays, Astonishment: Life in the Slow Lane, was published in 2008. She also wrote two collections of poetry entitled Jellybeans in Space and The Other Shoe. She died on November 2, 2016 at the age of 95.