Matthew T. Dickerson is an author, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, a scholar of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and the fantastic fiction of C.S.Lewis, and an environmental journalist and outdoor writer. His books include works of fiction, biography, philosophy, and scholarship (including eco-critical work) on fantasy and mythopoeic literature. Dickerson received his A.B. from Dartmouth College (1985) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University (1989)—where he also did graduate work in Old English language and literature. Since 2002 Dickerson has been the director of the New England Young Writers Conference, an annual four-day conference for high school students in Bread Loaf, Vermont, that is associated with Middlebury College.