Professor Thomas Ruys Smith specialises in the study of nineteenth-century literature and culture. He is the author and editor of a wide range of books including, most recently, The Last Gift: The Christmas Stories of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Louisiana State University Press, 2023). Hilary Emmett joined the School of American Studies at UEA in 2012, having studied and taught at universities in Australia and the USA. Her research engages a variety of fields from the literature of the early American Republic to nineteenth and twentieth century children's literature. She has also published widely on topics related to American Studies pedagogy, most recently on post-pandemic pedagogy in her co-edited collection (with Christopher Lloyd), The Affects of Pedagogy in Literary Studies (Routledge 2023). Her current teaching and research focus is on transnational American Studies and the transpacific relationships apparent (and not so apparent) in cultural texts of the United States and Australia.