Charles Portis (1933-2020) is the author of five novels, a handful of short stories, a play, and several essays, along with journalism written early in his career. His debut novel, Norwood, was published in 1966 and was made into a movie in 1970. His second and best-known novel, True Grit, has been twice adapted for the screen, most recently by the Coen brothers in 2010; in 2013 it was named a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Library Selection.

Jay Jennings is Senior Editor at the Oxford American, having formerly been a writer for Sports Illustrated and a features editor at Tennis magazine. His book Carry the Rock: Race, Football, and the Soul of an American City was published in 2010. A native of Little Rock and a longtime friend of Portis, he is the editor of Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany (2012) and the co-author (with Graham Gordy) of an as-yet-unproduced film adaptation of Portis's novel The Dog of the South.