A Central Michigan University English Professor, Dr. Root is the author of Wordsmithery: A Guide to Working at Writing (Macmillan, 1994), "Time by Moments Steals Away": The 1848 Journal of Ruth Douglass (with Ruth Douglass; Wayne State University Press, 1998), Those Who Do, Can: Teachers Writing, Writers Teaching: a Sourcebook (National Council of Teachers of English ; National Writing Project, University of California, 1996), and The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (Longman, 2001 ), and several other books.