Emily Dial-Driver is Professor of English at Rogers State College. A rancher’s grandkid, she thinks of southwest Oklahoma as the place where climate and foliage are correct: blazing hot and burning cold weather, red dirt, brown grass, and short trees with thorns. She now lives on the “wrong” side of the state with her husband and a menagerie. She has authored textbooks, various genre and media, and edited articles, periodicals (RSU’s "Cooweescoowee: A Journal of Arts and Letters"), and books (with others). In 2007 "Voices from the Heartland" was nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award for Non-Fiction. In 2014, Emily was selected as the winner of the Oklahoma Foundation Medal for Excellence for Teaching in a Community College or Regional University.