Peter Schakel is Peter C. and Emajean Cook Professor of English at Hope College. He is author of The Poetry of Jonathan Swift (1978) and four books on C.S. Lewis, including The Way into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide and Imagination and the Arts in C.S. Lewis. He is also editor of Critical Approaches to Teaching Swift and The Longing for a Form: Essays and Fiction on C.S. Lewis; coeditor with Charles A. Huttar of Word and Story in C.S. Lewis and The Rhetoric of Vision: Essays on Charles Williams. For Bedford/St. Martin’s, with Jack Ridl he co-edited 250 Poems, Approaching Poetry and he is coeditor with Janet Gardner, Beverley Lawn, and Jack Ridl of Literature: a Portable Anthology.
Jack Ridl is Professor Emeritus of English at Hope College where he taught courses in literature, essay writing, poetry writing, and the nature of poetry for thirty-five years. He has published six volumes of poetry and more than 200 poems in some fifty literary magazines; his most recent collection, Broken Symmetry, was selected by the Society of Midland Authors as one of the two best volumes of poetry published in 2006. His chapbook Against Elegies received the 2001 Letterpress Award from the Center for Book Arts. His recognitions for teaching excellence include the Hope Outstanding Professor-Educator award at Hope College for 1976, the Michigan Teacher of the Year award from the Carnegie Foundation in 1996, and the Favorite Faculty/Staff Member award at Hope College in 2003. For Bedford/St. Martin’s, with Peter Schakel he co-edited 250 Poems and Approaching Poetry; and he is coeditor with Janet Gardner, Beverley Lawn, and Peter Schakel of Literature: a Portable Anthology.