An Unexpected Journal: Shakespeare & Cultural Apologetics

Joe Ricke is a scholar, poet, actor, director, songwriter, and organizer. He was formerly Director of the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Taylor University. He has edited three books of Inkling-related material, published chapters and articles on Shakespeare, early drama, Tolkien, Lewis, Academic Freedom, and other topics. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and in the book New Crops from Old Fields: Eight Medievalist Poets. Among other plays, he has directed As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Loves Labours Lost, The Winter’s Tale, Waiting for Godot, Wit, and Antigone. He won the Best Actor Award in the 2019 Queens (NY) World Film Fest for his role in Palace. He is the founder and director of the Inkling Folk Fellowship.

Sarah Waters is a Lecturer in English Literature and an Honorary Junior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham, UK. Recent publications include an article on female agency, melancholia, and depression in Shakespeare’s Pericles and an article exploring the connections between Out of the Silent Planet and The Tempest. Her long-term project explores C.S. Lewis’s interaction with Shakespeare.

Jeremy (Jem) Bloomfield is Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Nottingham, and a Reader in the Church of England. His main research interests are Shakespeare and the Bible, the Inklings, and detective fiction. His books include Words of Power: Reading Shakespeare and the Bible (Lutterworth, 2016) and Witchcraft and Paganism in Midcentury Women’s Detective Fiction (Cambridge, 2022). He runs a group at the university which he refers to as the C.S. Lewis Reading Group, but his students insist it’s called Narnia Club, and they’re making badges to prove it

John D. Cox is the DuMez Professor of English Emeritus at Hope College. He is the author or editor of several books and of many essays in refereed journals. He is currently editing early morality plays in English for Digital Renaissance Editions.

Jack Heller, Ph.D. in English Literature from Louisiana State University, is Associate Professor of English at Huntington University (Indiana). He is the author of Penitent Brothellers: Grace, Sexuality, and Genre in Thomas Middleton’s City Comedies (2000) and “‘Your Statue Spouting Blood’: Julius Caesar, the Sacraments, and the Fountain of Life” (2010). He has been a frequent volunteer in prisons, and from 2013-2022, he founded and facilitated Shakespeare at Pendleton, a prison theatre program at Indiana’s maximum security Pendleton Correctional Facility. 

Laura Higgins is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Oxford Brookes University. She researches Shakespeare in production and has published on The Comedy of Errors and Richard II. She is currently working on the staging and significance of ghosts in Shakespeare and contemporary plays.

Crystal Hurd is a researcher and poet from Virginia. She has degrees from the University of Tennessee, East Tennessee State University, and the University of Texas at El Paso. She is the author of Thirty Days with C.S. Lewis: A Women’s Devotional and The Leadership of C.S. Lewis: Ten Traits to Encourage Change and Growth, serves as the Reviews Editor for Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, and, in 2020, won the Clyde Kilby Research Grant from The Marion E. Wade She currently teaches in the Romantic Theology and Faith and Writing programs at Northwind Theological Seminary. 

Corey Latta, PhD, is a teacher, speaker, and writer. holds degrees in New Testament Studies, 20th Century Literature, and Counseling. He is the author of four books, including C.S. Lewis and the Art of Writing.

Anthony Lawton has acted in Philadelphia for thirty years. In 2005, Lawton received grants from the Independence Foundation and Philadelphia Theatre Initiative to write and develop The Foocy, which garnered five Barrymore nominations (including Best New Play). In 2017, Lawton’s musical adaptation of George MacDonald’s The Light Princess won the Barrymore for Best Original Music, for which Lawton shared credit as lyricist. The Philadelphia City Paper named him the city’s “Best One-Man Theatre” for his solo productions of The Devil and Billy Markham, The Great Divorce, and The Screwtape Letters. For more information on these shows, go to: www.anthonylawtonactor.com.

Tracy Manning is the Director of Theatre and Assistant Professor at Taylor University. Her 2016 production of David Lindsey Abaire’s play Rabbit Hole received national acclaim from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) National Awards Committee, for “Distinguished Production of a Play,” “Distinguished Ensemble of a Play,” “Distinguished Director of a Play.” Roles of note include Vivian Bearing in Wit, Amanda Wingfield in Glass Menagerie, The Witch in Into the Woods, Sister Aloysius in Doubt. In 2015 and 2016, her productions were included in the The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.

Louis Markos, Professor in English and Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University, holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities; he is the author of 22 books, including The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes, From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics, Literature: A Student’s Guide, and three Canon Press Worldview Guides to the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid.

D.S. Martin is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College, and Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. He has written five poetry collections including Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis (2013), Ampersand (2018), and Angelicus (2021). 

G. Connor Salter is a writer and editor who has over 1,000 publications, ranging from award-winning journalism to reviews of graphic novels. He has presented on Inklings topics at the Inkling Folk Fellowship and Taylor University’s Making Literature Conference. He has contributed articles on Inklings topics to Mythlore, Fellowship & Fairydust, The Oddest Inkling, and A Pilgrim in Narnia. His article, "Tellers of Dark Fairy Tales: Common Themes in the Works of Terence Fisher and C.S. Lewis," appeared in the most recent issue of Mythlore. When he's not working, he enjoys searching for little-known horror films and British comedies. 

John has an M.A. in English from Morehead State University and is currently working on an A.A.S. in Cyber Security & Info Assurance through Ivy Tech Community College, where he has been employed since November 2009 as a tutor and de facto librarian.

Gary L. Tandy is Professor of English and Chair of the Language and Literature Department at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon, where he teaches courses in British Literature, Shakespeare, and C.S. Lewis and the Inklings. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Certitude: C.S. Lewis’s Nonfiction Prose as well as journal articles and reviews on C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers and their circle.

Grace Tiffany is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance literature at Western Michigan University. Her books include Borges on Shakespeare (ACMRS Press, 2018), Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, co-edited with Margaret Dupuis (MLA, 2013), and Erotic Beasts and Social Monsters: Shakespeare, Jonson, and Comic Androgyny (University of Delaware Press, 1995). She has also edited Shakespeare’s The Tempest for the New Riverside’s Evans Shakespeare Series (Cengage, 2011).

Jennifer Woodruff Tait is the managing editor of Christian History magazine and an Episcopal priest. Her academic books include The Poisoned Chalice and Christian History in Seven Sentences, and she has also published the poetry chapbook Histories of Us. She lives in Berea, Kentucky, with her husband and two children.