R. H. W. Dillard is the author of six collections of poetry, including Sallies (Louisiana State University, 2001), The Day I Stopped Dreaming About Barbara Steele and Other Poems (1966) and News of the Nile (1971), both from the University of North Carolina; After Borges (1972) and Just Here, Just Now (1994), from Louisiana State University; and The Greeting: New & Selected Poems (University of Utah, 1981). He has also written two novels, The First Man on the Sun (Louisiana State University, 1983) and The Book of Changes (Doubleday, 1974); a collection of short fiction, Omniphobia (Louisiana State University, 1995); and two critical studies, Horror Films (Monarch, 1976) and Understanding George Garrett (University of South Carolina, 1988). Dillard has published verse translations of plays by Plautus and Aristophanes. Professor of English, head of the Creative Writing Program and editor of The Hollins Critic at Hollins University in Virginia, he is a recipient of the O. B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize, awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library.  

Photo by Julia Johnson

Christine Schutt is the author of a collection of stories, Nightwork (Random House, 1997), and a novel, Florida (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University, 2003). Her fiction has been published in Mississippi Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The American Voice, The Kenyon Review, Denver Quarterly, and NOON, among others. Her awards include an O. Henry Prize and a Pushcart Prize. Schutt's story "Springerle" appeared in Blackbird, Vol. 1, No. 2.