Joan Wylie Hall, lecturer in English, earned a doctorate in American and English literature from Notre Dame University. She has also taught at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods (Indiana) College and conducted tutorials for junior English majors at Harvard. Author of "Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction" and editor of "Conversations with Audre Lorde," she has published more than 50 book chapters and journal articles on Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Ann Patchett, William Faulkner, Ruth McEnery Stuart, Anna Deavere Smith, Natasha Trethewey, and other authors. She has also published more than 100 book reviews. Her main research interests are southern literature, African American literature, and American women's writing. Listed in "Who's Who in America 2007," "Who's Who in American Education 2007-2008," and "Who's Who of American Women 2007," she received a Travel to Collections grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities and an Earhart Foundation research fellowship.