Professor of English and Director of BYU’s Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature, took his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. He has published widely on Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, Washington Irving, George F. Ruxton, Thomas Wolfe, and a variety of American and Western American authors, and extensively on Mormon literature. He was president of the Association for Mormon Letters, and published, with Neal Lambert, A Believing People: The Literature of the Latter-day Saints, and 22 Young Mormon Writers, and authored numerous articles on Mormon literature, including “Literature-Mormon Novels,” in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. A former bishop, stake president, and mission president, he has served as chair of BYU’s English Department, chair of American Studies, and as dean of the College of Humanities.