R. A. (Robert Alan) Christmas was born in 1939 in Pasadena, California, and attended Pasadena City Schools, where he was an athlete and student leader. He was converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1957 by his high school sweetheart. Christmas is a graduate of Stanford University, where he was a student of poet and critic Yvor Winters. Christmas earned an M.A. at the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate in Medieval English Literature at the University of Southern California in1968. He also attended Brigham Young University briefly as an undergraduate. Christmas has taught English at Idaho State University, USC, San Jose State, Pasadena City College, College of the Desert, and Southern Utah State College (now Southern Utah University), where he served as English Department Chair. He lives in Central Utah. <[email protected]>