James Alan McPherson Jr. was born in Savannah, Georgia on September 16, 1943. He received a bachelor's degree from Morris Brown College in 1965, a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a master of fine arts degree from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. While still in law school, he won a contest sponsored by The Atlantic Monthly magazine for a semi-autobiographical short story called Gold Coast. His first short story collection, Hue and Cry, was published in 1969. His next anthology, Elbow Room, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1978. He also wrote memoirs including Going Up to Atlanta and Crabcakes. In 1981, he was among the first 21 people who received what became known as genius awards from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He taught at the University of Virginia and the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He died from complications of pneumonia on July 27, 2016 at the age of 72.
Miller Williams was born on April 8, 1930 in Hoxie, Arkansas. He received a bachelor's degree in biology from Arkansas State University and a master's degree in zoology at the University of Arkansas. He taught biology at several colleges before getting a job in the Louisiana State University's English Department in 1962. He joined the University of Arkansas' English department in 1970 and remained a professor emeritus until his death. His first collection of poetry, Et Cetera, was published in 1952. During his lifetime, he wrote over 25 collections of poetry including A Circle of Stone, Halfway from Hoxie, The Boys on Their Bony Mules, Points of Departure, The Ways We Touch: Poems, and Time and the Tilting Earth: Poems. He received the 1991 Poets' Prize for Living on the Surface and the National Arts Award for his lifelong contribution to the arts. He also worked as a translator and editor and went on to co-found the University of Arkansas Press, which he directed for two decades. He read his poem, Of History and Hope, at President Bill Clinton's second inauguration. He died after years of battling Alzheimer's disease on January 1, 2015 at the age of 84.
