Joan Chase (1936–2018) was born and raised in Ohio. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in philosophy and history and later enrolled in the Writing Workshop of the University of Vermont. After being turned down by several publishers, During the Reign of the Queen of Persia was released by Harper & Row in 1983 and went on to win numerous prizes, including the PEN / Hemingway Foundation Award for first fiction by an American writer. Chase was also the author of the novel The Evening Wolves (1990) and the story collection Bonneville Blue (1991).
Meghan O’Rourke is the editor of The Yale Review and the author of three poetry collections (Once, Halflife, and Sun In Days) and a memoir, The Long Goodbye. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere.
