Robert P. Waxler graduated with a B.A. from Brown University, an M.A. from Boston College, and a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University. He is a Professor Emeritus at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he also served as Chairman of the English Department, Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Dean of Continuing Education and Summer Programs.Professor Waxler is cofounder of the Center for Jewish Culture at UMass Dartmouth and served as the Center's codirector for fifteen years. He also cofounded Changing Lives Through Literature, an internationally celebrated alternative sentencing program for criminal offenders, which has continued its work for over thirty years. Waxler has authored/co-authored several books, including The Risk of Reading (Bloomsbury), Why Reading Books Still Matters (Routledge), Finding a Voice (University of Michigan), Losing Jonathan (Spinner), Changing Lives Through Literature (Notre Dame), Transforming Literacy (Brill), and Courage to Walk (Spinner).He has also published numerous articles about literature, language and communication in a variety of scholarly journals, essay collections, magazines and newspapers. The author and his work have been featured in Parade Magazine, Le Novel Observateur, the New York Times, and on National Public Radio.He lives with his wife Linda Lassoff Waxler, a retired math teacher, in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where they have enjoyed married life together for fifty-six years.Robert Waxler can be contacted at rwaxler@umassd.edu.