Mary Alice Delia taught English for 37 years in nine states, receiving many awards for high school teaching, including the Maryland Teacher of the Year Award in 1985 and the Distinguished Teacher Award given by the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars in 1989.

While in Maryland, she started teaching at Wheaton High School in 1977, then at Seneca Valley High School in Germantown and ended at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School.

She published articles on critical theory and pedagogy and received the Broome Award for the most outstanding publication by a county educator in Montgomery County.

She went back to school in her 50’s to earn her doctorate in English Literature, which she completed at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1991.

She was recognized for expertise in postmodern theory and was a master teacher in a training program from 1991-1995 at the University of Maryland.

She then moved to North Topsail Beach, N.C., and taught part time at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington until her death in 1997 – before this book, which is based on her dissertation, could be published.