Jay Ruud is a retired professor of medieval literature at the University of Central Arkansas. Ruud is the author of The Merlin Mysteries: Fatal Feast; The Knight's Riddle; The Blea...view moreJay Ruud is a retired professor of medieval literature at the University of Central Arkansas. Ruud is the author of The Merlin Mysteries: Fatal Feast; The Knight's Riddle; The Bleak and Empty Sea; Lost in the Quagmire; Knight of the Cart; and To the Great Deep. He's also written scholarly books, including an Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature (2006), A Critical Companion to Dante (2008), and A Critical Companion to Tolkien (2011), as well as the first full-length study of Chaucer's short poems, "Many a Song and Many a Leccherous Lay": Tradition and Individuality in Chaucer Lyric Poetry (1992), a book that was reissued by Routledge in October 2019 after 27 years. He taught at UCA and chaired the English department for 13 years, prior to which he was Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He has a Ph.D. in Medieval Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Encircle Publications has published Jay's newest series, The Robin Hood Mysteries, Sleuth of Sherwood (June 2022), Ghoul of Sherwood (December 2022), and book three, Treasure of Sherwood, will be published in June 2024.view less