Verlyn Flieger is an author, editor, and professor in the Department of English at the University of Maryland at College Park. She teaches courses in comparative mythology, medieval literature and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Flieger holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America, and has been associated with the University of Maryland since 1976. In 2012, Flieger began teaching Arthurian studies at Signum University. Her best-known books are Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World; A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien's Road to Faerie, which won the 1998 Mythopoeic Award for Inklings studies; and Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology. She won the Mythopoeic Award for Inklings Studies a second time in 2002 for Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth, which she co-edited with Carl Hostetter. Flieger has also written a young adult fantasy, Pig Tale, and short stories. With Douglas A. Anderson and Michael D. C. Drout, she is co-editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review. 

January 1st, 1933 in (Age 91)