Gaylord Brewer is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, where he founded and edits the literary journal Poems & Plays. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and earned a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. His most recent books are the comic novella Octavius the 1st (Red Hen, 2008) and an eighth collection of poetry, Give Over, Graymalkin (Red Hen, 2011). He has published over 800 poems in journals and anthologies, such as Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to Literature, and is also a widely published literary critic and produced playwright. He has taught in England, Russia, Kenya, and the Czech Republic.