Charles Wright was born in 1935 in Pickwick Dam, Hardin County, Tennessee, and grew up in Tennessee and North Carolina. He attended Davidson College, The University of Iowa, and the University of Rome. From 1957 to 1961 he was in the Army Intelligence Service, stationed for most of this time in Verona, Italy. In 1963-65 he was a Fulbright student in Rome, translating the poems of the Italian poets Eugenio Montale and Cesare Pavese. In 1968-69 he was a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Padua. From 1966-1983 he was a member of the English Department of the University of California, Irvine. Since 1983, he has been a Professor of English (since 1988, Souder Family Professor of English) at the University of Virginia. He has taught, in a visiting capacity, at the University of Iowa, Princeton University, and Columbia University, as well as being Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Università Degli Studi, Florence, Italy, spring 1992. In 2014, he was named Poet Laureate of the United States. 

Eric Appleby is the co-founder, publisher, and designer of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety—now in its 16th year without a lost time accident. He also serves as webmaster for H_NGM_N, and most recently designed Dean Young’s 31 Poems (Forklift, Ink.), which was named one of the Best Physical Artifacts of 2009 by Coldfront. A graduate of Ball State University and The Design School of Hard Knocks, he is employed by a flooring distributor in a position he describes as “Computer Whisperer and Marketing Hack.” He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Tricia, and American Bulldog, Knuckles.