Anna Smol
Dr. Anna Smol is a Professor of English at Mount Saint Vincent University and the Principal Investigator in the “Tolkien’s Alliterative Poetry” project. Her teaching and research interests include Tolkien studies, medievalism, Old English poetry, and pedagogy. She has published on Tolkien in the Journal of Tolkien Research, Tolkien Studies, Mythlore, Modern Fiction Studies, and in various edited collections. She is currently on the editorial board of Mallorn, the peer-reviewed journal of the Tolkien Society. Her blog, A Single Leaf, contains information and occasional posts on Tolkien and medievalism, while more information on her teaching and research can be found on her site at annasmol.net. She can also be found on Twitter: @AnnaMSmol.
Gavin Foster
Gavin Foster is a second-year PhD student at Dalhousie University. His research interests include Tolkien studies, Old English literature and translation, and queer theory. His dissertation will examine how Tolkien’s narratives, including The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, include reflections of inherently female depictions of loss and grief found in both Old English oral-formulaic poetry and Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. He is presently working as a research assistant on Dr. Anna Smol’s “Tolkien and Alliterative Verse” project (you’re reading it now!) and TAing as many Pop Culture courses as his department will allow.
Jordan Audas
Jordan Audas is a project analyst and junior project manager at Digital Nova Scotia. He graduated from the Masters of Information program at Dalhousie University, becoming the first student of that program to be successfully awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grant for his thesis, entitled “The Price of Glass Slippers: Folklore, Intellectual Property, and Neoliberalism”. Prior to graduate school, Jordan completed his bachelor degree at Mount Saint Vincent University, majoring in English and graduating with distinction.
MacKenzie Moore
MacKenzie Moore recently received her Bachelor of Arts, with a major in English and a minor in Writing, from Mount Saint Vincent University with distinction. She has a deep passion for learning, and currently applies this passion to her work with the Wentworth Learning Centre, a small non-profit organization that is dedicated to the advancement of lifelong learning in rural Nova Scotian communities. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing, and hopes to pursue a career in this someday.
Tolkien and Alliterative Verse 