Author of ten books and editor or co-editor of nine others, as well as the New Variorum Othello in progress, of which he is Editor-in-Chief, Joseph A. Porter aka Joe Ashby Porter studied at Harvard (BA, 1964), Pembroke College Oxford (Fulbright Fellowship, 64-65) and UC Berkeley (PhD, 1972). After teaching full time at U. VA. and part-time at three other institutions, in 1980 he came to Duke, where he is now Professor of English and of Theater Studies. He has served as Visiting Professor at the Université François Rabelais in Tours, France, and as Writer in Residence at Brown, and he has twice served as Instructor at the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Shakespearean Joseph A. Porter's books are The Drama of Speech Acts and Shakespeare's Mercutio, his edited Critical Essays on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and his eight co-edited volumes of Renaissance Papers. His primary works in progress are the MLA New Variorum Othello, and Shakespearean Moorings, a cultural study of Othello. His awards include the NEH Folger Institute Fellowship. Fiction writer Joe Ashby Porter's books are the novels Eelgrass, Resident Aliens, and The Near Future, and the collections The Kentucky Stories, Lithuania: Short Stories, Touch Wood: Short Stories, and All Aboard: Stories. His work in progress includes a collection of short stories, a novel, and a memoir. His awards include two NEA Creative Writing Fellowships, and a 2004 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Literature with the commendation "No writer of his gifted generation has shown greater daring or has earned higher praise."