Herb Gilliland, a former naval officer, is Professor of English at Robert Heinlein’s alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. He is a member of the Heinlein Award Committee, which each year recognizes distinguished science fiction writers with a silver medal. To commemorate Heinlein’s 100th birthday, he designed and taught the first-ever college course devoted to Heinlein. That began a series of science fiction courses there, of which he will be teaching the latest one this coming Spring. His first appearance in print was a letter to John Campbell in Astounding; his most recent book, on the African cruise of the sloop USS Constellation on the threshold of the Civil War, will be “launched” by a celebration aboard that ship in Baltimore this December.