Spenser portrays the last four turbulent months in the life of poet Edmund Spenser, faithful servant of Queen Elizabeth I of England for whom he wrote The Fairie Queene. Written in Spenserian stanza to evoke the Elizabethan period and the poet's own style, Spenser is Book Two of the epic trilogy On the River of Time, which examines three figures - one mythical, one historical, and one fictional - from different time periods spanning almost three thousand years: Odysseus in ancient Greece; Spenser, the poet, in Ireland, and Archer, a fictional renegade actor/director, in present-day Canada.

Carl Hare in his long career has been a professor, actor, director, playwright, and poet. From the University of Alberta he won the Rutherford Gold Medal in English and later received an MA; he also has a Diploma in Acting from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He founded the University of Victoria's Theatre Department, was the Artistic Director of Company One Theatre, taught at the National Theatre School in Montreal, and was Chairman of the Drama Department at the University of Alberta. For the Canada Council he was the first Chair of the BC/Yukon Division of the Explorations Program. He served on the Board of the Dominion Drama Festival, and was a BC member of the Canadian Conference of the Arts and one of the founders of the National Screen Institute - Canada. In 2012 he won the Sterling Award for Outstanding Contribution to Theatre in Edmonton. His most recent work includes performances of his play The Eagle and the Tiger and his adaptation of Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman; the setting of six of his children's poems to music by Canadian composer Malcolm Forsyth; a commissioned poem for Forsyth's A Ballad of Canada, performed by the National Arts Centre Orchestra; and A Weathering of Years, a collection of poetry published in 2015.