WILLARD SPIEGELMAN was for many years the Hughes Professor of English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and the longtime editor of the Southwest Review. Since 1987 he has written about books and the arts for The Wall Street Journal. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Bogliasco Foundations, he is the author of eight books of literary criticism and personal essays, and the editor of Love, Amy: The Selected Letters of Amy Clampitt. Spiegelman currently lives in Stonington, Connecticut, and New York City.