Who among us is brave enough to challenge the mind of Alice Munro? To duel with Leon Rooke''s dreams? Or--more daunting yet--to joust with sloppy student grammar? Douglas Glover is the knight-in-arms of contemporary fiction, and Attack of the Copula Spiders a stalwart defense of the literary arts--in an age where too few care for its craft.

Douglas Glover: Douglas Glover (1948-) is the award-winning Canadian author of five story collections, four novels (including Elle), and two works of non-fiction. In 2003 he won the Governor-General''s Award for Fiction; in 2005 he was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; in 2006 he won the Writers'' Trust of Canada Timothy Findley Award. His critically acclaimed novel The Life and Times of Captain N. was listed by the Chicago Tribune as one of the best books of 1993 and as a Globe & Mail top-ten paperback of 2001. He was recently the subject of a TV documentary in a series called The Writing Life and a collection of critical essays, The Art of Desire, The Fiction of Douglas Glover, edited by Bruce Stone. And he appeared in several segments of the TV series Writers'' Confessions. Since he washed up in the hinterlands of upstate New York in the early 1990s, Glover has taught at Skidmore College, Colgate University, Davidson College, and the State University of New York at Albany. In addition, he has been writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick, the University of Lethbridge, St. Thomas University and Utah State University. He is currently on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program.