Ted Kooser, Presidential Professor of the University of Nebraska, is former U.S. poet laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. In addition to his many volumes of poetry, he is the coauthor (with Steve Cox) of Writing Brave and Free: Encouraging Words for People Who Want to Start Writing (Nebraska 2006) and the author of The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets (Nebraska 2005) and Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, available in a Bison Books edition. Tom Pohrt is an illustrator who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.