Tracy L. Bealer received her Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina, and currently teaches literature and composition at Borough of Manhattan Community College. She specializes in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century American novel with a particular interest in pop culture and genre fiction. She has published on William Faulkner, Alice Walker, Harry Potter, and Luke Cage, and co-edited Neil Gaiman and Philosophy for Open Court’s Pop Culture and Philosophy series. She is co-director of the Page 23 Literary Conference at Denver Comic Con.