Marjorie Ryerson is an author, writing professor, journalist, photographer, and poet. A tenured professor at Castleton State College in Vermont, she also taught poetry for Middlebury's New England Young Writers Conference, and served as a lecturer for the Vermont Humanities Council for her 2005 book Companions for the Passage: Stories of the Intimate Privilege of Accompanying the Dying. Her art photography book, Water Music, won international recognition, and most recently, she served as a Vermont State Representative. She is a graduate from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.