B.J. Hollars is professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He is the author of numerous books, including Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds (Nebraska, 2017), Go West, Young Man: A Father and Son Rediscover America on the Oregon Trail​ (Nebraska, 2021), Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians, and the Weird in Flyover Country (Nebraska, 2019), Dispatches from the Drownings: Reporting the Fiction of Nonfiction (New Mexico, 2014), This Is Only a Test, From the Mouths of Dogs: What Our Pets Teach Us about Life, Death, and Being Human (Nebraska, 2015), and Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America. Hollars is also the founder and executive director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild.