James Robert Spence (1928-1995), a native of Harnett County, NC, was an attorney who had an active career in public service in both North Carolina and Florida. Margaret D. Bauer is the Ralph Hardee Rives Chair of Southern Literature, professor of English, and editor of the North Carolina Literary Review at East Carolina University. She is the author of The Fiction of Ellen Gilchrist (1999) and William Faulkner's Legacy (2005). In 2007 she received the Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for her work as editor of the North Carolina Literary Review.