Ben Forkner is the director of the English department at the University of Angers in France where he teaches American and Irish literature. A graduate of Stetson University in Florida, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has co-edited three anthologies of Southern literature, Stories of the Modern South, A Modern Southern Reader, and Stories of the Old South. One of the greatest and most celebrated Southern writers of his day, George Washington Cable (1844-1925) helped lead the local-color movement of the late 1800s with his pioneering use of dialect and his skill in the short-story form. After serving in the Confederate army, he began to write for the New Orleans Picayune. Cable has been called the most important Southern artist working in the late-nineteenth century, as well as the first modern Southern writer. A complete listing of his books published by Pelican is available by request. Born in Greece to an Irish soldier and a Greek mother, Lafcadio Hearn emigrated to the United States at the age of nineteen. While working as a newspaperman in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hearn married a black woman, which was then illegal, and fled to New Orleans to escape prosecution. Once there, he began to work for the New Orleans Item. During his time in New Orleans, Hearn published several books while continuing his work as a journalist. Grace King (1852-1932) was the acclaimed author of Balcony Stories; New Orleans, the Place and the People; Creole Families of New Orleans; and many other works. For almost fifty years, she reigned over a literary salon that included local writers, like M. E. M. Davis, Dorothy Dix, and Pearl Rivers, as well as national figures, such as Thomas Nelson Page, Charles Dudley White, and Mark Twain. Grace King of New Orleans, edited by Robert Bush, is also available from Pelican. Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (1850-1904) was an American author of short stories and novels. She is considered by many to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century. Within a decade of her death, Chopin was widely recognised as one of the leading writers of her time. Lyle Saxon (1891-1946) ranks among Louisiana's most outstanding writers. During the 1920s and 1930s he was the central figure in the regionis literary community, and was widely known as a raconteur and bon vivant. In addition to Father Mississippi, Lafitte the Pirate, and Children of Strangers, he also wrote Fabulous New Orleans, Old Louisiana, The Friends of Joe Gilmore, and was a co-author of Gumbo Ya-Ya, with Edward Dreyer and Robert Tallant. During the Depression, he directed the state WPA Writers Project, which produced the WPA Guide to Louisiana and the WPA Guide to New Orleans. Arna Bontemps was a highly regarded poet and novelist during the Harlem Renaissance.