Tim Vivian is professor emeritus of religious studies at California State University, Bakersfield, and a retired priest of the Episcopal Church. He has published, among many books, The Life of Antony (with Apostolos N. Athanassakis, 2003), The Holy Workshop of Virtue: The Life of Saint John the Little (with Maged S.A. Mikhail, 2010), Becoming Fire: Through the Year with the Desert Fathers and Mothers (2009) and The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (vol. 1, 2021).

Maged S.A. Mikhail is professor of history at California State University, Fullerton. His research and teaching focus on Coptic Christianity, late antiquity, and the Islamic Middle East. He is the author of The Legacy of Demetrius of Alexandria (2017) and From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest (2014).

Mark N. Swanson is Harold S. Vogelaar professor of Christian-Muslim studies and interfaith relations at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.