Poet and churchman John Donne was born in London in 1572. He attended both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, but did not receive a degree from either university. He studied law at Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1592, and was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Keeper of the Great Seal, in 1598. He became an Anglican priest in 1615 and was appointed royal chaplain later that year. In 1621 he was named dean of St. Paul's Cathedral. Donne prepared for his own death by leaving his sickbed to deliver his own funeral sermon, "Death's Duel", and then returned home to have a portrait of himself made in his funeral shroud. He died in London on March 31, 1631.
Mary Gibson was born and brought up in Bermondsey, London, where her grandmother worked at Pearce Duff's factory - the setting for her first novel, CUSTARD TARTS AND BROKEN HEARTS. JAM & ROSES is her second novel.Michael Kardos is the author of the award-winning story collection One Last Good Time. He lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he is an assistant professor of English and co-director of the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.A. J. Smith spent twelve years devising The Long War cycle. When not living in the Lands of Ro, he works in secondary education.