Mae Miller Claxton is professor of English at Western Carolina University. She is the author of Conversations with Ron Rash and Conversations with Dorothy Allison, and was contributing editor to the Heath Anthology of American Literature, sixth edition. Her articles have appeared in Mississippi Quarterly, South Atlantic Review, and Southern Quarterly.

George Frizzell was the university archivist at Western Carolina University for twenty-seven years. He is a recognized expert in the fields of Cherokee studies and Appalachian history.