Samuel Pickering, the author of more thirty books, which span several genres, was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He taught English for forty-five years, thirty-five of them at the University of Connecticut. His most recent book is Parade’s End, published by Mercer University Press in 2018. “Reading Pickering,” a reviewer wrote in the Smithsonian decades ago, “is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend.”

Edward Butscher’s poetry and criticism have appeared in numerous literary journals and publications, including the Saturday Review of Literature, Newsday, and the American Book Review. In 1976 he published the first biography of Sylvia Plath, and in 1988 his biography Conrad Aiken: Poet of White Horse Vale won the Poetry Society of America’s Melville Cane Award.

James Kilgo (1941–2002) was born in Darlington, South Carolina. He graduated from Wofford College, then went on to receive his MA and PhD in American Literature from Tulane University. In 1967 he joined the faculty of the English department at the University of Georgia, where he remained until his retirement in 1999. Though he didn’t begin his creative writing career until he was well into his 30s, by the time he died in 2002 Kilgo had become an author both critically acclaimed and widely-read. His books include the essay collections Deep Enough for Ivorybills (1988) and Inheritance of Horses (1994); the Townsend Prize–winning novel Daughter of My People (1998); and the posthumously released autobiographical travel narrative Colors of Africa (2003). He also wrote The Blue Wall: Wilderness of the Carolinas and Georgia (1996) in collaboration with photographer Thomas Wyche, and in 1999 published the memoir The Hand-Carved Creche and Other Christmas Stories. (Inducted in 2011)