Robert Benson, a native of New Orleans, received the B.A. from Vanderbilt University and the Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has taught at the University of Southern Mississippi, Southeast Louisiana University, the University of Dallas and the University of Georgia before moving to Sewanee, Tennessee, where he has taught medieval English literature at the University of the South since 1979. He has published work on Chaucer, Andrew Lytle, Cormac McCarthy and others, and is a regular contributor to the periodical press, particularly the Sewanee Review. In 2006 Benson published the memoir Blood and Memory. “In this beautifully written book,” said Chris Camuto when it appeared, “[Benson] explores the dark still waters of his own past and rewards the reader for joining him in the journey.” He added that “Robert Benson is what I admire most in a writer: thoughtful, well read, well weathered.”