David Marion Holman taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Texas A&M University and was assistant professor of English at the University of Mississippi at the time of his death in 1988. Louis D. Rubin, Jr. , the founder of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill and a founding member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, taught English and creative writing for many years, mainly at Johns Hopkins University, Hollins College, and the University of North Carolina. (Annie Dillard, Kaye Gibbons, John Barth, and Lee Smith are just a few of his former students.) He has written or edited some forty-five books of his own, the most recent of which are The Edge of the Swamp, Small Craft Advisory,and The Mockingbird in the Gum Tree. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and in his spare time pursues his interests in painting, boating, military history, and baseball.

Jerry Leath Mills is professor of English at the University of North Carolina. He is editor of Studies in Philology and a passionate hunter and angler.