english alumni news - College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Transcription

WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
A CHANGE ON DECK
Chair Bruce Goebel and Associate Chair Kate Trueblood
We want to introduce ourselves as the new hands at the helm of the English Department. As ever with the
quarter system, we catch our breath in the troughs and gain velocity on the crests, but let us mention a few
special constellations in the sky we navigate by.
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Stephen King praised The Terror of Living as “a hell of a good novel” and
“an auspicious debut.”
Published by Little Brown, The Terror of Living was soon followed by The Carrion Birds with William
Morrow, and now Urban Waite’s novels have been have been translated into nine languages and both
are in preproduction for films.Waite came to Western’s MA Program when he was just 21, and he
remembers: “Much of the fiction I wrote was a little dark. Which is putting it lightly.”
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Nancy Johnson, Newbury Award Judge, teaches and blogs from The American School
in Singapore
“Some day, when I return to Bellingham, I hope I’ll remember unexpected pleasures such as these:
~ ‘I love you, Katniss!’ screamed 13-year-old Siddhanth (better known as Sid) as he lunged off the Tower
and plunged into the sea during our 3-day Classrooms Without Walls trip to Telunas last week.
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Oprah Magazine says: “This Is Paradise, by Kristiana Kahakauwila, navigates an ocean of
tension between tourists and islanders in paradisiacal, paradoxical Hawaii. Gritty, haunting,
and suspenseful.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
Her collection of short stories, This is Paradise, was selected for the Barnes & Noble Great New Writers Program. Published by Hogarth Press, an imprint of Random House, it debuted in July 2013. Set in and about
contemporary Hawai`i, these stories run ramshackle over the popular vision of paradise to depict a complicated, hostile, and sometimes beautiful island life. B&N featured This is Paradise in its stores, online and
on the Nook all summer. http://www.kristianakahakauwila.com/
On-line Private School Dean Alek Talevich Brings Us Up to Speed
One of the most entertaining aspects of working in virtual education is the constant struggle to explain the
real nature and shape of the job. For most folks, it sounds like a soft option: something you do when you’ve
got a coffee break from your “real job,” and every bit as intangible as the online medium itself.
Support the English department online: http://www.wwu.edu/give
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Vet turned writer, grad student, and farmer, Clayton Swansen finds his calling through
“dirt therapy”
Writing seemed to be one of the only things that helped me to understand myself, and to come to terms with
the things I had seen in combat. I am often asked why I decided to focus my Mission Continues Fellowship
on the Growing Veterans Farm, a local non-profit. I love the idea of “dirt therapy,” working with a group of
dedicated individuals for the common goal of helping fellow veterans is meaningful, and a positive contribution to the world. Before heading to the MFA Program at UW, I spent the past summer working as a farmer,
maintenance man, and editor for the Growing Vets blog, The Horn.
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Managing editor of nine journals, Gween Weerts surprises herself in publishing
I’ve been dodging the publication industry since 2001, when I enrolled for an elective English course titled
“Publishing” my junior year of college. The first days of class were spent discussing offset printing and looking
at historic lead type, with an assignment to research a typeface. I was much more interested in modern American lit, and I dropped the class after the second day.
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DANA SMITH, Teacher Extraordinaire: “Always Green, Always Restless, Always Searching”
I started day one of my first year at Western knowing I wanted to be an English teacher. I finished my coursework in 1998, student-taught here in Bellingham, taught for a semester…and then promptly left teaching for
the private sector when my husband and I moved to Houston. While he was studying Spanish Linguistics, I
was perched in office-job purgatory: answering phones, attending trade shows, and driving the back roads of
east Texas and Mississippi…
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Medievalist Jennie Friedrich on Cannabalization and Sound Bites
I earned my BA and MA in English/Writing at WWU in 2002 and 2009, and I am currently a doctoral
candidate in Medieval English Literature at the University of California, Riverside. My dissertation research focuses on the cannibalization of bodies in medieval travel narratives: how traveling bodies, both
literal and cultural, come into contact with each other in ways that threaten the boundaries of identity.
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High School Principal Todd Setterlund
Travels from Inner City Philadelphia Back Home to Burlington-Edison High School
Entering the Master in Teaching program at Western Washington University’s Woodring College in the winter of 2002, I never expected a journey that would take me to inner city Philadelphia and ultimately lead to high school administration back in the community where I was raised.
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Record Breaking Fulbright Awards
Western had eight Fulbright winners in 2013, and one of them is a recipient of the William E. Smith Scholarship for Professional and Technical Writing at WWU: Olivia Mothershead. Congratulations Olivia! The
Fulbright Program is a prestigious international exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Mothershead is helping to teach in an Austrian high school as an English teaching assistant. She left for Gmunden,
Austria in October and will return May 2014. While there, Mothershead said she hopes to improve her German and enjoy the snow-covered Alps.
In 2012, no master’s granting university in the nation had more than six Fulbright Fellowship award winners,
so this is also an astounding achievement for Western.
YOUR FOUNDATION CONTRIBUTIONS AT WORK ENABLE OUR
DEPARTMENT TO PARTICIPATE IN FOUR MAJOR CONFERENCES
Because of your support at the Foundation, the student staff of our graduate and
undergraduate journals will be able to attend the Associated Writing Programs
Conference in Seattle where Western will be a major presence.
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LEARNING AND SERVING IN RWANDA WITH LEE GULYAS
In summer 2013, Tim Costello, Director of Service Learning, and I took ten students for six weeks in Rwanda, where
we studied Travel Writing and ethical global citizenship.
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
SCHOLAR RESCUES POET LAUREATE & WRITER ELLA HIGGINSON FROM OBSCURITY
Laura Laffrado was on the front page of The Bellingham Herald on November 4th for her research on
Ella Higginson, former Poet Laureate of Washington. Higginson was an internationally known writer in
the 1890’s, who like other women writers before her, had fallen into obscurity.
Professor Laffrado hopes her scholarly articles about the importance of Higginson will restore this writer’s rightful reputation and put her books back into
print. To read more about The Ella Higginson Recovery Project, click here:
KOMO 4 COVERS VET CENTER WRITING WORKSHOP TAUGHT BY
ALUMNI
VETERAN CENTER
WRITING
WORKSHOP
Over Memorial Day Weekend, Komo 4 News covered a writing workshop taught
at the Bellingham Vet Center by Western Alumni who have served in the military. The clip features William R Borego. Sergeant First Class and member of the
military for 18 years who received an MA in English from Western (2007) and is
completing an MA in Education at Woodring College. Also featured is Michael
Woelkers (BA 2011), who launched the workshop in the Winter of 2013 with the
mentorship of Kate Trueblood. Woelkers was a former psychiatric nurse in the
military who is now finishing his MFA at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
KOMO4 COVERAGE
KATE LEBO’S FIRST BOOK
Kate Lebo’s first book, A Commonplace Book of Pie, was released
on October 8 by Chin Music Press of Seattle and featured in USA
Today
ACBOP mixes prose poems, recipes, humor, pop culture, and ephemera about
America’s favorite dessert. It’s a lyrical rumination on the real and imagined relationships between pie and those who love it.
USA TODAY COVERAGE
ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
NEW FACES IN OUR ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
JEREMY CUSHMAN: Rhetorical Theory, Workplace and Organizational Writing,
New Media Studies, and Pedagogical Theory
What were you like as a college age person?
I certainly wasn’t attending college as a college-age person. That would come a little later…
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CHRISTOPHER LOAR: Literature of the Eighteenth Century from both Britain and the Americas; Critical Theory; Political Philosophy; Gender Studies; and the Literature of Imperialism
What were you like as a young college age person? Give us a snapshot.
When I started college, I moved from my small hometown in Kansas (pop. 2025,
give or take) to Chicago’s South Side. I was pretty green--a first generation college kid . . .
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JUSTIN ERICKSEN: Composition and Literature, Writing Instruction, Popular Culture, and
Multicultural Literature
How did you come to your subject and this profession?
I’ve loved words and reading as long as I can remember and was an English major
in college. For reasons that I still don’t entirely understand, I took a twelve-year detour into
law school and legal practice, but never lost my love for reading and writing.
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MATT HOLTMEIER: Film and Contemporary Political Movements, Media from the Pacific Northwest, and Transnational Cinemas
I’m going to admit something here that I want you to never repeat: I didn’t seriously start watching films until taking my first introductory film course in college!
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Tributes to the Much Beloved: Doug Park and John Purdy Retire from Teaching
DOUG PARK RETIRES FROM TEACHING
Those of you who had classes with Doug Park know that when he talked about films he loved, he
became nearly rapturous; you couldn’t help but be touched by his enthusiasm and his love for the
art form.
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JOHN PURDY RETIRES FROM TEACHING
As John Purdy retires, he leaves behind a tremendous record of accomplishment in the English Department, the University, across the state, and around the world. John is one of the foremost scholars
of Native American Literatures in the world and his teaching, advising, and overwhelming generosity have profoundly impacted hundreds of students and colleagues.
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Back to Bellingham 2013: Alumni and Family Weekend
The William E. Smith Scholarship Celebration
Mark Sherman organized a celebration of our newly endowed professional and technical writing
scholarship. After celebrating alumni and the alumni advisory board, Nicole Brown gave a state of
the program update, and Bill presented this year’s award to Nicholas Hund.
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2013-2014 SCHOLARSHIP & AWARD WINNERS
Nancy & Ralph Babcock Jr. Memorial Scholarship
5 scholarships awarded: Anna Ulmer; Natalie Fedak; Sierra Jacob; Kaitlyn Abrams;
Taryn Hendrix
Bonnie J. Barthold Award Jolene Perry
R.D. Brown Memorial Scholarship
Alexa Peters & Anjolie York
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
SPOTLIGHT ON TEACHING
ANNE LOBECK COLLABORATES WITH FORMER STUDENT DANA SMITH
Last year I had such an opportunity, when my former student Dana Brannan Smith agreed to
work with me to develop and pilot a series of grammar lessons in her 10th grade English classes at
Sehome High School.
Every week we introduced students to different linguistic puzzles (with the help of scissors, glue
sticks, highlighters, and colored post-its, sometimes stuck on students, and sometimes on wall
charts around the room) that led them to discover the syntactic and morphological properties
of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. A particularly memorable lesson involved Dana’s inspired use of
Venn diagrams and a snarling grizzly bear. Perhaps above all, we wanted the students to find that
grammar is actually something they already know, rather than a list of rules they had to memorize.
There is no way to list all the things I’ve learned from Dana and the wonderful fifteen-year-olds we
worked with. This experience not only allowed me to meet my research goals, but perhaps more
importantly allowed me to be a student again.
KATIE VULIC BRINGS MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT FRAGMENTS TO CLASS
In Spring 2013, the graduate students in my English 560, “Medieval Manuscript Culture,” were given
a unique opportunity: to work with real medieval materials, including manuscript fragments (parchment leaves that have been separated from their full volumes) and incunables (the earliest examples
of European printing-press books, dating up to the year 1501).
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NEW COURSES: YOUR FACULTY AT WORK
INTRODUCING
NEW COURSES
In this issue of the newsletter, we wanted to highlight some of the new courses in our curriculum.
The richness of these offerings conveys how our faculty constantly respond to the larger world. In
the process, they renew themselves as teachers, update themselves in their fields, and invigorate their
classrooms.
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ENGLISH TEACHER ALUMNI
ENGLISH TEACHER
ALUMNI
Here’s our list of alumni who are currently English teachers in Elementary and Secondary Education. If you or someone you know should be on it, please let us know! We want to hear from you.
[email protected]
Baker, Laura, Bellingham High School, Bellingham WA
Baldwin (Larson), Jenni , The Overlake School, Redmond WA
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
IN MEMORIAM
George Daneri
George Daneri, age 66 of Bellingham passed away on April 15, 2013. He was a graduate student in our MA
Program and a strong, deeply humanitarian presence. While at Western he organized a collaborative work
of sculpture and poetry titled “Bloodroot: Transcending Paradigms of Domination and Greed,” and a panel
discussion. The sculpture depicted class examination of the incarceration of growing numbers of women
across the globe in spaces such as industrialized prisons, sweat shops, refugee camps, and war zones. All
the material used to create Bloodroot came from beaches, backyards and rubbish heaps of the Bellingham
area, making the point that creativity is not of commercial value, but to be found in the margins. We count
it our good fortune to have known George and to have read his poems and memoir-in-progress. Prior to
becoming a student at Western, Daneri served as a nurse for many years and in 1998 received the AmeriCare Award from the Connecticut Nurses Association. A memorial service was held at Routh Funeral Home
in Jersey City, New Jersey on Friday, April 26, 2013 with burial following at Holy Name Cemetery in Jersey
City.
Dr. Golden Lavon Larsen
Dr. Golden Lavon Larsen departed this life at the age of 91 on August 22, 2013. Golden (or Goldie, as his friends
knew him) was a vital force of hard work, clear-eyed perception, and truth telling. He was born in Oakley,
Idaho, on June 16, 1922, the fifth of the ten children of Joseph E. Larsen and Isabelle Anna Jukes Larsen.
During World War II, Golden served in the US Navy in the Pacific theater aboard the submarine USS Loggerhead. After discharge from the service, he graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor’s degree
in English. He was the first member of his family to receive a college degree. Golden then earned a Master’s
degree from Utah State U, continuing his advanced studies at the University of Washington, from which he
received his PhD degree. In 1956, while a graduate student at UW, Golden began his career in the English
Department of Western Washington College of Education, now Western Washington University. Earlier,
Golden married Theda Rae Rasmussen on June 21, 1946. As an academic, Golden achieved significant
success. In 1965 he published THE DARK DESCENT, a well-received critical study of the novels of British
writer Joyce Cary. In 1975, recognizing him as an administrator of integrity and a courageous teller of the
truth, Golden’s colleagues in the English Department elected him to be their department chair, in which
post he served with great success for four years. When he retired from teaching, Western also recognized his
contributions by granting him the well-deserved status of emeritus.
Dr. Jim O’Brien
Dr. Jim O’Brien, age 93, passed away peacefully on January 19, 2013 in Bellingham. He was born October 28,
1919 in Tacoma, WA, the second of five children of Harold T. and Julia R. (Burns) O’Brien. At a young age
Jim was fascinated with books and began his daily habit of reading that continued his entire life. He married
Patricia Hieber on August 21, 1953 at Sacred Heart Church and for their honeymoon they bicycled throughout Ireland. His undergraduate studies were at Seattle University and he earned his MA and PhD at the UW.
He was devoted to the next generation of teachers as an English Professor at WWU for 39 years. Jim specialized in Irish literature and retired in 1985. Jim was a member of the Mt. Baker Hiking Club for over 50 years,
a golfing member of the BGCC, and was an active member of Sacred Heart. Jim loved hiking, camping,
and traveling. He was outgoing and friendly, and had time for his children and grandchildren. The English
Department is grateful for the scholarship funds made in memory of Jim O’Brien.
ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
HERE COMES EVERYONE: LATEST NEWS FROM THE LIVES OF ALUMNI
Heidi Aijala (MA 2013) was accepted into the PhD program in English at the University of Iowa with
full teaching assistantship.
Mike Anderson (BA 2002) is an Engineering Technical Specialist at Boeing where he has four authoritative documents to his name and another two in the works.
Michael Dean Anthony (BA 2007) founded Thumbnail Magazine: A Flash Fiction Journal, now in its
fifth edition.
Laura Baker (MA 2012) is in her second year of teaching English full-time at Bellingham High
School.
Jenni Baldwin (MA 2007) is teaching upper school English at The Overlake School in Redmond,
Washington.
Megan Bedard (BA 2007) is currently Managing Editor at Flaunt Magazine. http://www.flaunt.com/
Indra Sterling Black (BA 1997) received a Technical Writing Certificate from Bellevue College in
Summer Quarter 2013.
William Borego (MA 2007 & BA 2003), Sergeant First Class and member of the military for 18
years, is completing an MA in Education at Woodring College. A long term veterans’ advocate, he runs
a writing workshop at the Bellingham Vet Center.
Heather Bowhay (BA & Teaching Certificate 2005) is a substitute teacher in the Bellingham School
District. She has published three e-books in a paranormal fantasy series, all of which are set in Bellingham. The first, Amethyst, is currently free on all eBook platforms.
J. Adam Brinson (BA 2009) is a Seattle-area graphic designer with Touch Worldwide.
Danielle Campoamor (BA 2009) maintains her blog, A Twenty-Something Nothing, which was
published as an e-book with Thought Catalog in September 2013. http://atwentysomethingnothing.
blogspot.com/
Ian Chant (BA 2007) left his position as Senior Editor for Geekosystem, and is now the Associate
News and Features Editor at Library Journal.
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ALUMNI NEWS
Gretchen Coulter (BA 2004 & MA 2007) was Program Chair of the Two-Year College Association
Conference of the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Northwest Writing Center Association.
Cameron Deuel (BA 2011) writes for the music web site Listen Before You Buy, and has worked with
the rest of the editorial staff to shift the site to a new URL and name; Unrecorded. He has also started
writing for Nada Mucho, which is a local music site. His debut is a series developed with their managing editor spanning the full lineup of Timbrrr! Winter Music Fest.
Savannah DiMarco (BA 2013) has been accepted to the University of St. Andrews’ Classical Studies
MLit Program in Scotland.
Makaela Dökken (BA 2012) works as an independent contractor for DK Global Inc., a company that
produces presentations and documentaries to be used in mediations and trials. In her job, she assesses
the case material, and sequentially translates it into a coherent script in three sections: Narration, Visuals/Audio, and Documents.
Spencer Ellsworth (MA 2009) teaches composition and literature at Northwest Indian College.
Michael Falcone’s (MA 2002) feature-length documentary, The Hall of Giants, showed at the Seattle
Independent Film Festival. This documentary about the people, place and times that produced the Fremont Troll brought Falcone a Seattle City Artists grant award and a Fremont Art Council grant. http://
blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2013/08/27/film-release-the-hall-of-giants-and-the-making-of-the-fremont-troll/#12183101=0
Kat Finch (BA 2011) has started the poetry MFA at Michigan where she has been awarded a full
teaching fellowship.
Connor Geraghty (BA 2001 & MA 2004 ) will begin a new position as Principal of St. Michael
School, a Catholic elementary school in Olympia, Washington. Connor leaves his position as English
teacher and International Baccalaureate Program Coordinator at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred
Heart in Bellevue, Washington. Connor received his Principal certificate from Seattle University and
his MA in teaching from Seattle Pacific University.
Ashley Goodwin (BA 2012) is the Marketing and Communications Department Project Coordinator
at Digipen in Seattle.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Anne Greenfield (MA 2005) completed her PhD at the U of Denver in English in 2011 and has been
an Assistant Professor of English (18th-Century British Lit) at Valdosta State University in Georgia
from 2011 to the present.
Jeremy Head (BA 2006) deployed to Iraq as a Combat Engineer in 2008, attached to US Special
Operations Command. After returning to the US in 2009, he and other vets founded CONNECT Communications, Inc, a telecommunications company in Washington. He holds Master’s Degree in Intelligence Analysis with certification in Terrorism Studies and continues to serve the US Army Reserves,
now as a Psychological Operations Specialist.
Amanda Hill (MA 2008) Associate Professor at Cornish College of the Arts, Amanda Hill served as
Chair and Host for the annual joint conference of the Pacific Northwest Writing Center Association
and Two-Year College Association of the Pacific Northwest. Amanda is also Coordinator of the Cornish Writing Center.
Rob Hitt (MA 2013) is attending the MFA program in poetry at the University of Alabama with full
support.
Emily Hollingsworth (BA 2012) is an Assistant Editor at Coffeetown Press in Seattle.
http://coffeetownpress.com/
Chas Hoppe (MA 2010) has established his own freelance editorial business under his own name. In
February 2013, Gold Wake Press released The Diegesis, a poetry collection written in collaboration with
poet & alum Joshua Young. http://chashoppe.com/about/
Jennifer A. Jahner (BA 1998) is an Assistant Professor of English at the California Institute of Technology. She received her MA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2005, and her PhD from
the University of Pennsylvania in 2012.
Lynn Kilpatrick (MA 1998) is an Associate Professor at Salt Lake Community College.
Kate Lebo (BA 2005) was featured in USA Today on November 13, 2013 for her book A Commonplace Book of Pie, published by Seattle publisher, Chin Music Press. She has been on a multi-city book
tour including San Francisco, Washington DC, New York, Minneapolis, and Missoula. http://katelebo.
wordpress.com/
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Aaron Linde (BA 2007) has left Warner Bros. Games in Kirkland to move to Gearbox Software in
Dallas, Texas, a privately held studio that prizes original game content. http://www.gearboxsoftware.
com/
Brent Lewis (BA 2008) is a College Success Instructor at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg,
Oregon and Assistant Fiction Editor of Sundog Lit: Scorched Earth Literature. http://sundoglit.com/
Lori Martindale (MA 2003) completed her Ph.D. in Media in August of 2013 at The European
Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. She reviews online Literature courses for quality and certification purposes at various colleges and universities in the
U.S., including Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. She currently resides in Bellingham and enjoys teaching literature courses at Whatcom Community College.
Thomas Martinsen (MA 1976) just retired from Milwaukee Area Technical College where he taught
English full-time for seventeen years and part-time for twelve.
Stephanie Mataya (BA 2013) served as an editorial intern at Epicenter Press and is now interning at
Serendipity Literary Agency in New York.
Megan McAllister (BA 2013) interned with Cleis Press and Viva Editions and is currently at Small
Press Distribution in Berkeley, California.
Don McCluskey (BA 2006) is Associate Dean of Academics at Northwest Indian College.
http://www.nwic.edu/
Mike McQuaide (BA 1992) has written outdoor, travel, and lifestyle stories for everyone from Adventure Cyclist to Runner’s World to Outside Magazine. He has written six books on outdoor recreation and
travel. His most recent one, 75 Classic Rides in Washington was published by the Mountaineers Books
in 2012.
Humter Motto (BA 2009) former Program Director at the Mount Baker Theater is the Talent Agent
for The Crocodile, a live music venue in Seattle, where he books and promotes indie, rock, pop, and
urban. http://lineout.thestranger.com/lineout/archives/2012/03/14/extended-interview-with-crocodiletalent-buyers-melissa-darby-and-hunter-motto
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ALUMNI NEWS
Deborah Poe (MA 2004) published Between Worlds: An Anthology of Contemporary Fiction and
Criticism (Peter Lang 2012), co-edited with Ama Wattley. She also published her novella in verse, Hélène (Furniture Press 2012) and her latest poetry collection, the last will be stone, too (Stockport Flats
2013).
Brittany Rogers (Young) (BA 2008) served as editor in the publications department at Logos before
moving on to Amazon.com, where she acted as a Content Quality Editor for Kindle books, and her
current position as Author Relations Manager for two Amazon Publishing imprints: 47 North (SciFi, Fantasy and Horror) and Jet City Comics (graphic novels). http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.
html?ie=UTF8&docId=1001278221
Rebecca Saxton (MA 2003) is currently a member of the Northwest Indian College faculty where
she teaches English Composition and Native Literatures.
Rush Seitz (BA 2009) and Laura Laffrado’s profile of Deaf writer Adele George with an excerpt from
George’s biography (bringing her work back into print for the first time in 140 years) appears in Legacy:
A Journal of American Women Writers. http://legacywomenwriters.org/
Brittany Splinter (BA 2013) left Bellingham for Manhattan immediately after graduation. She accepted an internship with a New York City dance company and is also working as a personal assistant
job for an author and screenwriter, reviewing manuscripts. Victoria Sprang (BA 1992) is the Alumni Relations Manager for the University of Washington, Department of Communication.
George Such (MA 2011) is pursuing his PhD at University of Louisiana Lafayette where he received
both graduate fellowships and teaching assistantships.
Mara Steele (MA 2013) is currently working with CareerPerfect, a partner with Monster.Com, as
a professional writer . She has had the following articles accepted for publication in peer-reviewed
journals: “Isabelle Eberhardt: Sufi, Orientalist, and ‘Proto-Postmodernist’ with translation of ‘Silhouettes d’Afrique’,” Lights: The MESSA Journal, Volume 2, No. 3 [http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/messa/
files/2013/08/Lights-Spring-2013-FINAL.pdf];“A Non-Violent Killing Spree of Impossible Friendship:
Sherman Alexie’s ‘South by Southwest’ and Derrida’s The Politics of Friendship” Forthcoming, Limina Journal Online, 2014;“Observations on Telepathy and the Transference Love”, Transformations
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ALUMNI NEWS
Journal, Forthcoming, 2014; “Review of Chomsky and Deconstruction: The Politics of Unconscious
Knowledge by Christopher Wise,” Derrida Today [Forthcoming].
Marjorie Steele (BA 2007) is Creative Director of 616 Development in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a
firm that has received recognition for its work in revitalizing our urban neighborhood. As Creative
Director, she manages digital assets, marketing, and communication. http://616development.com/
Clayton Swansen (BA 2013) served seven years in the US Navy as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal
Technician with one combat deployment in 2007 to Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He separated from the
Navy in 2009 to pursue a BA at Western Washington University. Currently, he attends the University
of Washington MFA program.
Wandaya Terry (BA 2010) is attending Kent State University’s English Literature MA Program fullyfunded with a Graduate Assistantship and Dean’s Award
Vanessa Trippel (BA 2010) received a certificate in Editing and also a certificate in Technical Writing and Editing from the University of Washington and now works as a Technical Writer at F5 Networks, a global leader in Application Delivery Networking. http://www.f5.com/
Gary Thomas (BA 1984) serves as the Writer in Residence at Second Baptist Church in Houston (a
congregation of 60,000 members). His latest book, “The Sacred Search: What If It’s Not About Who
You Marry, but Why?” was published this year by David C. Cook publishers. Zondervan publishers
will be releasing a revised edition of “Sacred Marriage” (which has sold over 600,000 copies and has
been translated into a dozen languages) in the fall of 2014. http://zondervan.com/
Kate Ver Ploeg (MA 2011) was accepted into the MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of New Hampshire with a full teaching assistantship.
Alyssa Von Lehman Lopez (BA 2000) received her MA in English from Colorado State University
and is currently Grants Officer at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Travis Vogan (BA 2002) is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication and American Studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of the e-book, Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films
and the Rise of Sports Media forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press in 2014. http://www.
press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/52fwf9ff9780252038389.html
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ALUMNI NEWS
Julie Marie Wade (MA 2003) has a new poetry collection Postage Due out from Colgate University
Press, where it won their national prize. http://www.juliemariewade.com/
Katie Wisdom Weinstein (BA 1992) is currently the public art administrator for the Oregon Zoo
and a program coordinator for Oregon Humanities. At OH, she organizes 24 teachers and 200 high
school students every summer to join a 3-day summer institute to explore the pursuit of happiness
through the humanities.
Brenda Wilbee (MA 1989) has been highly successful with her historical novels set in Seattle, the
Sweetbriar series, which have sold over 600,000 copies. Her tenth book, Skagway: It’s All About the Gold
will be released next spring. http://sweetbriarbooks.blogspot.com/
Joshua Marie Wilkinson (MA 2000) has a new poetry book, SWAMP ISTHMUS, and edited an
anthology of critical and creative responses to Anne Carson’s work that has been accepted by the
University of Michigan Press. He’s also editing an online poetry and poetics journal called The Volta.
Michael Woelkers (BA 2011) is in his last year of a three-year MFA program in fiction writing at
the University of Alaska in Anchorage. For his MFA practicum, he taught creative writing to veterans
at the Veterans Center in Bellingham during the winter of 2013. He is a former psychiatric nurse who
served in the military. Woelkers is completing a book of short stories —ecological fiction— under author Craig Childs’ mentorship.
Anna Wolff (MA 2008) served as Chair of the 2013 Chuckanut Writers Conference. She also teaches
at Whatcom Community College. http://chuckanutwritersconference.com/
Arielle Yarwood (BA 2012) attended the University of Colorado Denver Publishing Institute, served
as an intern for Bitch magazine in Portland, Oregon and is now interning at Tin House.
John Zackel (MA 2007) received a full-time creative writing job at Portland Community College,
where he earned tenure. His fiction has appeared in the Black Warrior Review, the New Orleans Review,
Third Coast, the Indiana Review, and Hobart, among others.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
THE LATEST FROM YOUR FACULTY
Kaveh Askari
Kaveh Askari’s book Picture Craft: Discourses of Art from the Magic Lantern to Early Hollywood was accepted for the
Cultural Histories of Cinema series and is forthcoming from the British Film Institute in 2014. His short film on Harry Smith premiered at the Harry Smith Festival in Portland and was screened at the Pickford Cinema in Bellingham.
He delivered papers at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the Berkeley Conference on Silent Cinema.
Bruce Beasley
Bruce Beasley’s new book, Theophobia, was published by BOA Editions in 2012 and received a starred review in
Publishers Weekly. His poem, “Having Read the Holy Spirit’s Wikipedia” was anthologized in The Yale Anthology of
Devotional Poetry. Other poems have been published this year in the Gettysburg Review, the Kenyon Review, and
Field, among others.
Nicole Brown
Nicole Brown’s article, “Wisdom in a Nutshell: Sacred Activism,” appeared in Amulet: A Fieldguide for Living Wise
and “Hermes Seal” is forthcoming with the same journal in January 2014.
Oliver de la Paz
Oliver de la Paz’s hybrid collection, Post Subject: A Fable, is forthcoming with The University of Akron Press in
Spring of 2014. His poems have been published in the anthology American Creative Writers on Class, and in the journals New South, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, and The Normal School, among others.
Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck
Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck’s new book, Navigating English Grammar: A Guide to Analyzing Real Language
was published this year. Together they presented “The Changing Focus of Teaching and Doing Linguistics” at the
Linguistic Society of America.
Dawn Dietrich
Dawn Dietrich is the Director of the Western Reads Program. In conjunction with the 2012-2013 selection, The
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she moderated three discussions with the Western Reads speakers Rebecca Skloot,
Joy DeGruy, and Kelly Edwards. She presented “From Everything that’s Fit to Print to Everything that’s Digitally
Encoded: Watchmen’s Computational Universe and the College Classroom” at the Specific and Ancient Languages
Association Conference fall of 2013.
Geri Forsberg
Geri Forsberg’s new book chapter “Korzybski and Cultural Studies“ has been published in the collection Korzybski
And . . . . She delivered a paper titled “Ellul’s Concept of Technique and Writing Studies” at the 13th Annual Convention of Media Ecology.
Margi Fox
Margi Fox undertook major editing projects for Washington Campus Compact including two large grants for AmeriCorps positions and report on their annual conference.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Allison Giffen
Allison Giffen’s essay “Modeling Daughterhood: Genre and Paternal Desire in Martha Finley’s Elsie Dinsmore
Series” was accepted for inclusion in the collection Romantic Pedagogies, forthcoming from Routledge in 2014. She
chaired a panel and delivered a paper, “Captivity and Convent: Beset Domesticity in the Anti-Catholic Novels of
Martha Finley” at the Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference, and another at the American
Literature Association Symposium.
Marc Geisler
Marc Geisler presented a paper, “Music to Hear: Shakespeare’s Ear Training for the Young,” at the Association of
America, Toronto, Canada in March, 2013.
Bruce Goebel
Bruce Goebel has written an English Language Arts teaching methods textbook, which he makes available as a free
textbook to students via Canvas. It includes a chapter on the challenges presented by the Teacher Performance Assessment.
Carol Guess
Carol Guess has had two books published this year: F IN with Noctuary Press and X Marks the Dress: A Registry,
co-written with Khristina Marie Darling and published by Gold Wake Press. She and Kelly Magee have a short story
collection titled With Animal forthcoming with Black Lawrence Press in 2014.
Lee Gulyas
Lee Gulyas’s essay, “Remains,” was published in Prime: A Journal of Distinctive Poetry and Prose.
Kristiana Kahakauwila
Kristiana Kahakauwila’s collection of stories, This is Paradise, was published by Random House Press’s Hogarth
Books. It was selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. Her short story “Do I Look Like
I’m Joking?” was published in Mission at Tenth.
Laura Laffrado
Laura Laffrado co-authored “Profile of Adele M. George,” with former student Rush Seitz, which appeared in Legacy: a Journal of American Women. Her essay “Family Matters: Incest and Trauma in the Memoirs of Abigail Abbot
Bailey,” appeared in Literature in the Early American Republic, also in 2013.
Mark Lester
Mark Lester received the 2013 Ronald Kleinkenecht Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Humanities
and Social Sciences.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Anne Lobeck and Kristin Denham
Anne Lobeck and Kristin Denham’s new book, Navigating English Grammar: A Guide to Analyzing Real Language
was published this year with Wiley-Blackwell. Together they presented “The Changing Focus of Teaching and Doing
Linguistics” at the Linguistic Society of America.
Kathleen Lundeen
Kathleen Lundeen’s essay “The Collision of Physics and Metaphysics in England around 1800” appears in a collection of essays on science and literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Her article “On Herschel’s FortyFoot Telescope, 1789” was published in the online journal BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century
History. She has also presented at the annual PAMLA conference, the MLA convention, and the Nineteenth Century
Studies Association.
Bill Lyne
Bill Lyne’s article “Class Matters: A Review of Change.edu” was published in Thought and Action 2012. He presented
“The Revolution Will Not Take Place Online” at the University of Alaska, Juneau. Fairbanks, and Anchorage. He is a
regular contributor to the United Faculty of Washington State Blog.
Kelly Magee
Kelly Magee’s short story collection With Animal, co-written with Carol Guess, is forthcoming from Black
Lawrence Press in 2014. This year, her work has been published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Juked, and the Kenyon
Review, among others.
Kristin Mahoney
Kristin Mahoney’s article, “Vernon Lee at the Margins of the Twentieth Century: World War I, Pacifism, and PostVictorian Aestheticism,” appeared in ELT: English Literature in Transition 1880-1920. She was Coordinator of the
Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association Conference 2013 in Portland this year.
Catherine McDonald
Catherine McDonald chaired a roundtable, “Transformative Power of Digital Discourse” at the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing Conference and presented her paper, “Cheating on the Academy: A
Digital Affair in the Real World.” She also co-presented with a student, “Pls Txt while I Teach: Let’s See what We
Learn Together,” at the Pacific Northwest American Studies Association Conference: Technology & Communication.
Mary Janell Metzger
Mary Janell Metzger’s essay, “Teaching Shakespeare’s Tragedies as the Problem of Human Freedom,” will be published in Shakespeare in the EFL Classroom in 2014.
Brenda Miller
Brenda Miller’s essay, “We Regret to Inform You,” appeared in The Sun. Her creative nonfiction has been published
this year in The Seneca Review, Arts and Letters, Passages North, Quarter After Eight, and The Southern California
Review, among others. Her work was anthologized in You: an Anthology in the Second Person, as well as in Bending
Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Nancy Pagh
Nancy Pagh’s poems were published in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Conversations across Borders, and A Sense of Place: The
Washington State Geospatial Poetry Anthology. She was an invited participant in the Word Waves Anacortes Poetry Festival. After her reading, one of her poems was carved in cedar and installed at Washington Park in Anacortes.
Suzanne Paola
Suzanne Paola guest-edited a special issue of Brevity: Ceiling or Sky? Female Nonfiction After the Vida Account. Her
poetry and non-fiction have also appeared in Fourth Genre, Notre Dame Review, Seneca Review, and Orion, among
others.
Christopher Patton
Christopher Patton’s poem, “Pastoral,” was published in the spring issue of the Colorado Review. His children’s story,
“The Watermelon’s Lion,” was published in Arc, and other poems appeared in Versal.
John Purdy
John Purdy received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his summer seminar for school
teachers held in 2012.
Donna Qualley
Donna Qualley’s essay, “After Words: Some Thoughts,” was published in Literacy in Composition Studies. Also,
“Reading in the Dark: When the Teacher and Student Are Still in Transition” was published in Reader: Essays on
Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy. She presented a paper co-written with six graduate students,
“(Re)Aligning Expectations: Graduate Students as Agents of Integration” at the College Composition and Communication Conference in 2013.
Lysa Rivera
Lysa Rivera’s essay on Borderlands’ Dystopias was published in the anthology, After NAFTA: Contemporary North
American Dystopian Literature, published by Wilfred Laurier University Press. Her essays also appeared in the Science Fiction Research Association Review and Science Fiction Studies.
Sara Stamey
Sara Stamey has been accepted for membership in Book View Cafe, a publishing cooperative co-founded by Ursula
K. LeGuin. The co-op, composed of professionally-published novelists, publishes new and backlist fiction in eBook
and print-on-demand formats. Stamey will be the featured author for March 2014.
Kate Trueblood
Kate Trueblood was awarded the 2013 Goldenberg Prize in Fiction, judged by Jane Smiley, for her short story, “The
No-Tell Hotel,” published in the Bellevue Literary Review. Her essay, “The View From the Bluff: The Port Townsend
Writers’ Conference” appeared in Poets & Writers Magazine. She also contributed a chapter, “Blog Touring,” to Everyday Book Marketing published by Ashland Creek Press.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Kathryn Vulic
Kathryn Vulic has edited the anthology Readers, Reading, and Reception, to which she is also a contributor. It is
forthcoming in 2014 with Brepols Press. She presented, “The Green Man in a Devotional Context,” at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.
Christopher Wise
Christopher Wise’s article “Arab Racism and Ethnic Conflict in Mali,” co-written with Fallou Ngom, was published
in the West African Research Association Newsletter. His article “Plundering Mali,” appeared in Arena Magazine, also
this spring.
Ning Yu
Ning Yu will have two books published this year: Borrowed from the Great Lump of Earth: an American Ecocritic’s
Translation of 155 Tang Poems published by Shanghai Press of the Classics in Beijing, and In Response to the Howling
Monkeys: an Eco-Critic’s Translation of Three Hundred and Seventeen Tang Poems with East Asian Studies Press. A
monograph, Weeds, and Trees Have Their Own Minds: The Environmental Imagination in Tang Poetry, is forthcoming
with the University of Washington Press.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
WITH THANKS TO OUR DONORS
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
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English Alumni News 2014
Editor
Kathryn Trueblood
Advisor
Bruce Goebel
Art Director
Mark Sherman
Administrative Coordinators
Pam Race, Tina Nelson,
Linda Flanagan, and Lynn Graham
To receive additional Western news, please visit
alumniconnections to “Update Your Info” with your
current e-mail address
ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
A CHANGE ON DECK
Chair Bruce Goebel and Associate Chair Kate Trueblood
We want to introduce ourselves as the new hands at the helm of the English Department. As ever with the
quarter system, we catch our breath in the troughs and gain velocity on the crests, but let us mention a few
special constellations in the sky we navigate by.
BACK
First of all, we would like to thank Marc Geisler for his stellar leadership as Chair of the Department for
seven years and congratulate him on his promotion to Associate Dean of the College of Humanities and
Social Studies. We also welcome Nancy Johnson back to the Department after her three years of teaching at
the American School in Singapore.
In this newsletter, we are pleased to include interviews with new faculty members—Assistant Professor
Christopher Loar in 18th Century Literature, Assistant Professor Jeremy Cushman in Tech & Professional
Writing, Assistant Director of Composition Justin Ericksen, and Visiting Professor Matthew Holtmeier in
Film.
We are also in this issue expressing our gratitude to Doug Park and John Purdy, who both retired in 2013,
after many years of generosity and dedication as teachers and colleagues.
As we considered the news you sent us this last year, we were struck by how many of you have secured jobs
that didn’t exist a few years ago, and in response, we have updated our newsletter to be a more web-friendly,
click-through experience.
Our Alumni Profiles this year include novelist Urban Waite, whose books have been translated into nine
languages and are in production for films; Gwen Weerts, Managing Editor at SPIE, the international society
for optics and photonics; Alek Talevich, Academic Dean of Laurel Springs, an online high school; Clayton
Swansen, MFA student at UW and Iraq Vet; Todd Setterlund, Principal at Burlington-Edison High School;
Dana Smith, English teacher at Sehome High School; and Jennie Freidrich, doctoral candidate and medievalist.
As always, we want to mention upcoming events that are made possible by alumni donations, events that allow our students to engage in professional activities – the Children’s Literature Conference in Bellingham on
March 1; the Associated Writing Programs conference in Seattle, Feb 26; The Society for Cinema and Media
Studies Conference in Seattle, March 19-23. Additionally, Kristin Mahoney just returned from the Victorian
Interdisciplinary Studies Association Conference in Portland, which was attended by several of our graduate
students.
In this issue of the newsletter, we highlight some of the new courses in our curriculum because the richness
of these offerings convey how our faculty constantly respond to the larger world and update themselves in
their fields. In the process, they renew themselves as teachers, and invigorate their classrooms. New courses
and topics that we are excited about include: “The Ocean Is In Us: Navigations in Pacific Literature,” “Travel
Writing in Rwanda,” “Film and Contemporary Political Movements,” “Exploring Happiness: Research in the
Humanities,” and “Medical Narratives: the Intersection of Medicine, Science, and the Arts.”
Our curriculum changes and expands as a constant conversation between faculty, alumni, and students. It
is you who inform us, so please let us know about your creative pursuits and your careers at english@wwu.
edu.
BACK
Stephen King praised The Terror of Living as “a hell of a good novel” and
“an auspicious debut.”
Published by Little Brown, The Terror of Living was soon followed by The Carrion Birds with William Morrow, and now Urban Waite’s novels have been have been translated into nine languages
and both are in preproduction for films.Waite came to Western’s MA Program when he was just 21,
and he remembers: “Much of the fiction I wrote was a little dark. Which is putting it lightly.”
BACK
I guess I’m a little rusty with this nonfiction thing—sitting here at my desk as I sweat over what to
say or how to put it. For the past six years I’ve made my living as a novelist and so I think maybe the
best way to begin is to say I wasn’t always someone who makes a living writing fiction.
Often I didn’t write and when I did I wrote stories and essays. Selling them to no one and then later
selling them to magazines for contributor copies and little more than my own pride. Working on
them before I took my shift at a local restaurant and then staying up late afterwards as I worried
over whether the dialogue was right, or the character, or any other number of things that, in all
honesty, probably only mattered to me.
I started out my writing career at Western when I was twenty-one, taking classes in the MA program. I was there for fiction, but many of my class choices tended more toward the nonfiction side
of things, studying with Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola. On the fiction side I learned a great deal
from Carol Guess and Kathryn Trueblood. Much of the fiction I wrote was a little dark. Which
is putting it lightly. Even now, ten years later, whether I’m running into Kathryn on a plane from
Washington DC to Seattle after a writers’ conference, or if we’re exchanging emails over this alumni
profile, she still remembers a certain story of mine about a group of friends, a fire in the woods, and
an act of violence. Needless to say, Kathryn will never go on a camping trip with me.
I’ve had two novels published. The first was picked up by Little, Brown and the second by Harper/
William Morrow. Both The Terror Of Living and The Carrion Birds have been translated into
nine languages and both are in preproduction for films. Like most of what goes on with any of this
business, it would kill me to hold my breath for the one in a million shot that either novel has of
being picked up and then turned into a movie. And this is primarily how I live my life—not waiting
around for the next opportunity, but rather going after it. My third novel just went off to the Frankfurt Book Fair and I’m crossing my fingers for good things. But if it doesn’t work out I’ll be right
back at it looking to see how I can improve.
I’ve been in a lot of workshops since Western, but it’s what I received at Western that truly defined
who I became later in my career. Anytime I’m working through a story it’s the feedback that matters
the most to me. Sometimes you can be so in your own head that you miss the obvious and all you
need is someone to give it to you straight. Did they like the story? Did they hate it?
This is all a long way of saying I’ve had my heart broken a time or two and I expect to have it broken again. It’s part of being a writer and any writer who says they’ve had it easy is probably lying.
So, Western, thanks for breaking my heart in the best way possible.
Nancy Johnson, Newbury Award Judge, teaches and blogs from The American School in
Singapore
Hungry for HUNGER GAMES (blog entry, Sept. 2010)
There’s no denying it . . . The Hunger Games Revolution is alive and well in Room M126. Every single
copy (from my library, to the entire SAS library system, to my colleagues’ libraries) has been checked out.
Kids are sneak reading in math, in social studies, even during our writing focus lessons (dang!). The obsession has hit both my gal and guy readers, including hold-outs who tried to avoid the hype. Even Jane,
who prefers James Thurber, put aside Thurber’s short story collection this afternoon when a copy of The
Hunger Games finally became available.
~ I caught Mallari under my desk when I returned from lunch yesterday. When I asked what she was
doing, she admitted she’d “stolen” our one-and-only copy of Cynthia Lord’s Touch Blue because she
needed to find out what happened next to Aaron and Tess. Don’t (ever) let anyone tell you that 8th graders are too old to listen to a story, especially one with characters they care about. Yesterday afternoon as
I hustled to return a book to the library minutes before class, another student stopped me on the stairs:
”Are you going to read Touch Blue today?” Our ritual in RLA 8 is the read aloud three times a week. And
now that we’re just six chapters from the end, they want more. How satisfying is that?
Thank you Suzanne Collins for creating readers. And thank you John Mason at Scholastic for dropping
a copy of Mockingjay into the (air)mail. It lasted a whole 10 seconds on my desk before Rohan spied it.
I expect he’ll be at least half way into the novel by morning. Let’s just hope these kids get some sleep. We
have other work to do. Yeah right.
Unexpected Pleasures (blog entry, Nov. 2011)
Some day, when I return to Bellingham, I hope I’ll remember unexpected pleasures such as these:
~ “I love you, Katniss!” screamed 13-year-old Siddhanth (better known as Sid) as he lunged off the Tower
and plunged into the sea during our 3-day Classrooms Without Walls trip to Telunas last week. This is a
kid who devoured The Hunger Games trilogy, and bravely admitted to our entire class that he read–and
loved—the Twilight books (which set off quite a commotion — and permission for a few of my other
guys to admit they read ‘em too!). Sid is an avid reader, a gifted poet, and he lights up a stage as an actor/
actress (as we discovered during skit night at Telunas when he stole the show performing a female-jive
version of Little Red Riding Hood). Sid’s a gutsy kid who’s earning acceptance for his unique talents – I’m
fortunate he’s in my class.
New Year’s Day (blog entry, Jan. 2012)
[Some] Looking back pleasures from this past year:
1) Middle Schoolers — Goofy, smart, roller-coaster-ride savvy. They’ve taught me so much more than
I’ve taught them. Who’d have imagined I’d look forward to a 5 a.m. alarm clock five mornings a week. But
I do. In large part because of the gift of middle schoolers.
2) Life Without a Car — The MRT (mass rapid transit) has become my favorite form of transportation —
reliable, clean, efficient, inexpensive, convenient, etc., etc., etc. It’s my “office on wheels” every afternoon
as I either respond to student writing or read uninterrupted during the 45 minute journey from school to
my condo. The MRT allows me anonymous time to work, people watch, rest. I’ve become a mass transit
addict!
3) Bling — it’s everywhere — shoes, handbags, clothing, Christmas trees — and it’s not just for evening!
While I haven’t (yet) succumbed to too much sparkle, I find it creeping into my wardrobe. Even my new
flip-flops are encrusted with a few gems. I’ve become attracted to sparkle and may need to make some
adjustments when I return to the States (How does bling complement my Bellingham fleece?). For now,
I’ll enjoy this gemology addiction, and attend to fleece and Doc Martens later.
BACK
ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
On-line Private School Dean Alek Talevich Brings Us Up to Speed
BACK
One of the most entertaining aspects of working in virtual education is the constant struggle to
explain the real nature and shape of the job. For most folks, it sounds like a soft option: something you do when you’ve got a coffee break from your “real job,” and every bit as intangible as the
online medium itself. The idea that meaningful learning can exist in an environment unhindered
by actual, physical space still seems like the stuff of sci-fi fancy to most folks: but it’s exactly that
quality that’s made it my career of choice for the last five years.
I owe a great deal of that success to my time at Western. Before becoming an Academic Dean of
Electives at Laurel Springs High School, an accredited online private school, I was just another
student gummed up in the classic quagmire of wanting to teach, and needing to be taught. For all
the academic merits of the English program and the depth of its catalogue, it’s the human face of
that experience that’s made the most difference for me, personally and professionally. A teaching
candidate can learn pedagogy “off the page,” and effectively use it; learning to convey humanity and empathy to a student who lives in Japan—through a medium that inherently strips us of
identity—is a skill set that stems from something quite different.
A few years ago, I had the benefit of speaking at the retirement of Professor Bill Smith, who was a
mentor to me in my final year of graduate school. When it came time to “speak my piece,” I simply shared my gratitude for the kindness that Bill showed me on a daily basis, even when I wasn’t
in his classes. It’s those acts—the truly selfless connections that inspire learning which has nothing to do with textbooks and theory—that stay with you, and which you find yourself referring to
as you define your own relationships with your students… wherever they may be.
In the last five years, I’ve had beignets with my students in New Orleans, attended a teacher luncheon in Tokyo, and delivered keynote duties in Orlando, New York and Phoenix. It’s overwhelming at times: even for someone who’s been doing this circuit (no pun intended) for half a decade,
the speed at which education is evolving is absolutely staggering. I can’t purport to know where
or what the state of the learning arts will be in ten months, let alone ten years; however, I do know
that regardless of its shape, it’ll require educators who can do more than just answer e-mails and
deliver webcam lectures. And those educators are going to require the expertise of instructors like
Bill Smith, Dawn Dietrich, and Kate Trueblood, whose lessons extend—much like the internet
itself—well beyond the limitations of classroom walls.
BACK
ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Vet turned writer, grad student, and farmer, Clayton Swansen finds his calling through “dirt
therapy.”
I grew up in Blaine, Washington, a small, withering fishing burg clinging to the edge of the farthest reaches of the
Pacific Northwest. Like many, I joined the military shortly after September 11 to fight for America’s security in a new
age of global threats. After seven years in the Navy, I decided that I had expanded my literal horizons enough for the
time being, and decided to return home get an education that would complement my travels, and give me a better
understanding of the world, and the things I had seen.
BACK
My first year at Western was difficult. I was older than a large majority of the students, and I felt out of practice in the
classroom environment. I kept my mouth shut mostly, and just listened. The students frequently amazed me. It blew
me away that such young students could be so well-spoken and intelligent. I remembered myself at that age, and I was
nothing if not short-sighted, self-centered, and uninformed.
By the end of my first year though, I had found a certain stride. I enjoyed the GUR classes very much, because they
allowed me to take in a great sampling of a large variety of subjects. I took an Arabic class, Middle-Eastern Studies
courses, and Anthropology classes. I was very interested in opening my mind to things I had previously been very
closed off to. My view of things like religion, and Mid-East culture had been seen from a very narrow vantage point,
and it was not until I went back to school that I finally understood that.
Still, I struggled to commit to a major, and began to think I would just settle for a general studies degree. This freed
me up to take some upper level classes that I had been interested in, and so I took a writing class with Carlos Martinez. I had been interested in writing, but the nearest I had ever come to it was to keep a journal of my experiences at
war. I have read a book every night of my life though since I was old enough to read, and I have always had a profound love of literature of any sort.
I shortly realized that I had found something I could sink my teeth into. The creative freedom, the variety of works
that I studied, all made me realize that I should have always been an English major. My emphasis was creative writing, which I found allowed me to explore things that I had been pondering for years. The big three, whiskey, war, and
women (not necessarily in that order) had consumed most of my twenties, and left me with little but confusion and
baggage of the emotional sort. I was having a difficult time adjusting to life, even after being home for two years. Writing seemed to be one of the only things that helped me to understand myself, and to come to terms with the things I
had seen in combat.
Finally settling into a major was like finding a new home for me. The English department at Western was so welcoming, and helpful. I took classes from great teachers like Sara Stamey, Kelly Magee, and John Purdy who opened up the
world of writing and literature for me. I took Kate Trueblood’s 1960’s Lit class, which was more of a hybrid creative
writing/literature class, and we studied great writing from that period, but it was Paco’s Story, a novel about the Vietnam War that hit me. I realized that I wanted to write, but I began to understand that to write well, you have to write
fearlessly. You have to expose yourself while keeping your pants on, and dig up those things that you don’t want to dig
up.
Ultimately, I applied to multiple MFA programs across that country, and to my happy surprise was accepted to two of
them. I chose the University of Washington where I have always wanted to go to school. In the interim I worked with
my friend Chris Brown, who started a nonprofit organic farm for veterans in transition called Growing Veterans. I
loved the idea of “dirt therapy,” and getting out into the tangible world to blister my hands and burn my neck, to see
that hard work bloom into peas and carrot, lettuces and radishes, bugs and weeds. Working with a group of dedicated
individuals for the common goal of helping fellow veterans is meaningful, and a positive contribution to the world.
Subsequently, I received a fellowship from The Mission Continues, whose fellows serve for six months at a local nonprofit and commit to a permanent role of public service. I spent the past summer working as a farmer, maintenance
man, and editor for The Horn, a blog for Growing Vets, and I am now in my first quarter as an MFA student at the
University of Washington.
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ALUMNI NEWS
Managing editor of nine journals, Gween Weerts surprises herself in publishing
I’ve been dodging the publication industry since 2001, when I enrolled for an elective English course titled
“Publishing” my junior year of college. The first days of class were spent discussing offset printing and looking
at historic lead type, with an assignment to research a typeface. I was much more interested in modern American lit, and I dropped the class after the second day.
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I dodged it yet again in graduate school, when Kate Trueblood was directing independent studies for Western’s English department, and I had a credit to use as I pleased. An old-timey local printing press expressed
interest in mentoring a student, and while I envisioned vintage graphics and soy-based inks and hand-pressed
paper, what the business really needed was someone to manage orders for and run their digital printer, which
brought in most of the company’s cash flow. The familiar kaplunk of disillusionment settled in my stomach,
and I took a course on Spirituality and Writing instead.
It’s surprising, then, that I—who haven’t taken a science class since high school—became the managing editor
for a highly technical scientific journal publisher. It wasn’t a direct and obvious career path from Western’s
graduate program, which emphasized pedagogy and steered many graduates toward a teaching career. But, in
addition to giving me an excellent foundation in composition theory and creative writing, the English graduate program at WWU taught me how to “participate in the discourse.”
In my job, that meant quickly learning to write and talk convincingly in a discipline and industry that I knew
almost nothing about. My employer, SPIE, is a nonprofit international society for optical engineering, which
means that the organization supports academics and industries that research the science and applications of
light. The journals we publish cover *ahem* the full spectrum, from computer chip laser etching to biomedical
imaging to astronomical telescopes.
In some ways my work as an editor—which required an English degree on the job description—has little to do
with a degree in English. My daily work is more concerned with Strunk and White than Sartre and Friedan,
and I do a lot more editing and revising other people’s creative research than writing my own. However, the
ability to revise, think critically, analyze, and interpret are skills emphasized in Western’s English program
that can be applied to anything, and they allowed me to quickly become immersed in the publishing industry,
despite the missed opportunities earlier in my education. By immersing myself in the discourse of my new
community, I quickly advanced from an editor, to a senior editor, to the managing editor of nine journals in
my first six years at SPIE.
Although the thought of a career in publishing sounded dreadfully boring a decade ago, the discourse now
runs through my veins. I can spend an afternoon debating the impact of e-books on the future of the industry,
or worrying about the closing gap between editorial work and computer programming. I research histories of
typefaces in my spare time.
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ALUMNI NEWS
DANA SMITH, Teacher Extraordinaire: “Always Green, Always Restless, Always Searching”
I started day one of my first year at Western knowing I wanted to be an English teacher. I finished my
coursework in 1998, student-taught here in Bellingham, taught for a semester…and then promptly left
teaching for the private sector when my husband and I moved to Houston. While he was studying Spanish
Linguistics, I was perched in office-job purgatory: answering phones, attending trade shows, and driving the
back roads of east Texas and Mississippi.
I then parlayed my writing and communication skills into a job in marketing and product development.
Although I discovered my skills were a lot more versatile than I’d imagined, I never lost my desire to teach.
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I started at Sehome High School in 2002. I’ve taught primarily sophomores and juniors, everything from
World Lit to marketing to AP Language & Composition. I also advise both the yearbook and the newspaper,
jobs I absolutely never envisioned and absolutely adore doing. In fact, I love advising publications so much
that I earned my master’s in English and Journalism from the University of Missouri. My most recent project
has been collaborating with WWU’s Dr. Anne Lobeck to teach linguistics-based grammar for the high school
level. It has been a blast!
My English classes taught me about pattern recognition as well as clarity of thought and of communication.
Whether it was killing myself to pass a style-analysis exam in Dr. Geisler’s British Lit, reading a play a week in
Dr. Smith’s 400-level Shakespeare, or researching the evolution of a slang word in Dr. Denham’s History and
Structure of English, I refined my ability to say something important in the clearest way possible.
Teaching is a rewarding and challenging career but you have to be ready for it to consume you (in a good way).
I don’t ever teach the same year twice. A colleague once told me: “If you’re green, you’re growing; if you’re ripe,
you rot.” That’s my aim: always green, always restless, always searching for the next challenge.
For you newly-minted education majors: you may not be able to get a job in Bellingham or even in Western
Washington right now, but give something new a try. Move across the country, move overseas, move to a small
town on the east side. I’m exactly where I thought I’d be when I started at WWU 20 years ago; that said, the
path that led me here was one I couldn’t have predicted.
And, finally: three books every new English teacher needs:
1. The First Days of School by Harry Wong
2. Notice and Note by Lynette Beers and Robert Probst
3. They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
Medievalist Jennie Friedrich on Cannibilization and Sound Bites
I earned my BA and MA in English/Writing at WWU in 2002 and 2009, and I am currently a doctoral candidate in Medieval English Literature at the University of California, Riverside. My dissertation research focuses
on the cannibalization of bodies in medieval travel narratives: how traveling bodies, both literal and cultural,
come into contact with each other in ways that threaten the boundaries of identity.
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In 2012, I had reviews published in Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, I presented
at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, and I was invited to present at the New Chaucer Society
Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland. In addition, I serve as the Graduate Coordinator for the Medieval Mellon
Group at UCR.
One of the most important things I learned at WWU was the value of networking and mentorship. Interpersonal connections are vital in academia, and developing networking skills has enabled me to meet and maintain relationships with people in my field who continue to help me learn and grow. I feel lucky to have had
mentors at WWU who were willing to take the time to teach me what I needed to know to succeed, first in
my creative writing endeavors and then in literary studies. I am currently serving as a peer advocate at UCR,
passing on some of the great advice I received at WWU and from my current advisors at UCR to incoming
graduate students and helping them to navigate the culture of a large graduate program.
A number of courses I took at WWU have found their way into my dissertation research. I discovered my
love of the “stuffness” of books first in Kate Trueblood’s Editing and Publishing course and then again in
Katie Vulić’s Medieval Literary Theory course. I learned how to navigate relationships between words and
images from Dawn Dietrich and Kathy Lundeen, and I learned discourses on the body from Bruce Goebel,
Allison Giffen, and Kristin Mahoney. I also learned to be a scholar at WWU and those skills have served me
well in a much larger program. It is easier to take on leadership roles and pursue professional opportunities in
my field because those behaviors were modeled for me.
It is helpful for prospective grad students to know in advance that they must learn to be both artisans and
salespeople in order to be competitive. They need to craft delicate structures of new scholarly thought, but
also to reduce them to sound bites for committees and defend them before fellow scholars at conferences.
This can be a difficult cluster of skills to learn, but it becomes much easier with the help of experienced
scholars who are willing and able to serve as mentors for their students. WWU’s English department is a great
training ground for those skills.
For more info: http://gsea.ucr.edu/profiles/jfriedrich.html.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
High School Principal Todd Setterlund
Travels from Inner City Philadelphia Back Home to Burlington-Edison High School
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Entering the Master in Teaching program at Western Washington University’s Woodring College in the winter
of 2002, I never expected a journey that would take me to inner city Philadelphia and ultimately lead to high
school administration back in the community where I was raised. After earning a BA in English from the
University of Washington, I studied secondary English at Woodring and worked with WWU’s Student Placement office to land a student teaching position within the School District of Philadelphia. After completing
my student teaching, I was hired as an English teacher at Martin Luther King High School (MLKHS) in the
Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. I taught all grade levels of high school English, served as the
interim English Department chair, and as a varsity girls head basketball coach.
After several years teaching English, I was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of
Education’s Aspiring Principals program. I completed my administrative credentials and was hired at MLKHS
as an assistant principal. After working in Philadelphia for nearly seven years, I returned home to the Skagit
Valley and was hired as an assistant principal at Burlington-Edison High School (B-EHS). This year, I became
the principal of the school. I believe that all students need to graduate with the skills to succeed in higher
education or a technical training program. It’s our responsibility as educators to offer unconditional belief in
students, giving our support, guidance, and encouragement every day. Follow me and B-EHS events on Twitter at @behsprincipal or go to http://www.be.wednet.edu/Domain/13.
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ALUMNI NEWS
YOUR FOUNDATION CONTRIBUTIONS AT WORK ENABLE OUR DEPARTMENT
TO PARTICIPATE IN FOUR MAJOR CONFERENCES
The Associated Writing Programs Conference 2014 in Seattle
February 26 – March 1, 2014
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On Friday, February 28th, from 7:00-8:15 pm we invite you to a reception in recognition of our
esteemed alumni as well as our newly minted MFA Program. Please come and celebrate the WWU
Creative Writing Community with your faculty. Please also help us spread the word about our AWP reception via social media. Tell everyone to
bring a copy of their latest publication to put on our “Embarrassment of Riches” table! We are so
proud of your publications, your professional positions, your numerous awards, and the good works
you’ve done in the world.
https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/event_detail/2203
In honor of our new MFA Program, we will also be sponsoring “A Reading and Conversation with
Gretel Ehrlich and Barry Lopez,” followed by a VIP Reception also on Friday night of the Conference.
Gretel Ehrlich, author of The Solace of Open Spaces and In the Empire of Ice, and Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men, will present readings of their award-winning work,
followed by a moderated discussion. The event will be moderated by award-winning journalist and
former host of NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” Neal Conan. https://www.awpwriter.org/awp_conference/event_detail/1982
The 11th Annual Children’s Literature Conference In Bellingham on March 1st, 2014
Nancy Johnson and her team of students are gearing up for The 11th Annual Children’s Literature
Conference which will take place this year on March 1st and features authors Nic Bishop, recipient of 2011 ALA Sibert Medal for Nonfiction for Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Largest Parrot;
Jennifer Holm, author of Babymouse series of graphic-novel series and recipient of 2011 Newbery
Honor for Turtle in Paradise; Steve Sheinkin, recipient of the 2013 Sibert Award for Nonfiction, the
2013 Newbery Honor, and 2013 National Book Award finalist for Bomb: The Race to Build—and
Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon; and Laura Vaccaro Seeger, recipient of 2013 Caldecott
Honor for Green and 2008 Giesel Award for First the Egg.
The Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference in Seattle March 19-23
Kaveh Askari is looking forward to taking a group of his film students to the SCMS conference,
which has honored the year’s best in cinema and media studies scholarship since 1971. The conference includes teaching, service, and career awards as well as book awards. http://www.cmstudies.
org/?page=awards
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ALUMNI NEWS
(continued) YOUR FOUNDATION CONTRIBUTIONS AT WORK ENABLE OUR DEPARTMENT TO PARTICIPATE IN FOUR MAJOR CONFERENCES
Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association Conference 2013 in Portland
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On November 14, 2013, Professor Kristin Mahoney traveled to Portland, Oregon
with four of our MA students to attend the VISA conference of the Western United
States, which focused this year on the topic of “Victorian Modernities.” Kate Kenney,
Joanna Owen, Jessica Crockett, and Caitlin Morris were able to attend the conference due to the generous support of our alumni donors, and they benefited immensely from the experience. Joanna Owen said, “Attending the Victorian Modernities conference was a great opportunity for me to hear current scholarship in my area
of interest. I was able to meet other professionals and discuss their work. Not only
did this offer a chance for networking, but it was also very rewarding to attend panels and share in the excitement and passion everyone had for their research. I have
been contemplating continuing on to a PhD program, and I am extremely grateful
I was able to attend the conference and meet other Victorianists.” Kate Kenney enjoyed being exposed to “funny, insightful and talented people excitedly talking about
things they love. This made the conference experience a much more attainable idea
and made me feel as if I too can find a place to talk academically about my favorite
subjects.”
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http://www.visawus.org/
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JEREMY CUSHMAN: Rhetorical Theory, Workplace and Organizational Writing,
New Media Studies, and Pedagogical Theory
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I certainly wasn’t attending college as a college-age person. That would come a little later, when
most my friends from high school were graduating. Instead I was, well, maybe the best way
to say it is that I was exploring. I tried the army; I tried working in auto shops; I occasionally
tried to look beyond the upcoming weekend; I tried stuff I’m not going to write about. I just
lacked commitment. But I think I might still have been a little bit reflective and curious. I say
this because when I did finally try a college classroom, things changed. I missed bus stops
because I was reading a book (a book!) and I started believing in new, kind of scary ideas. So, I
think I was an irresponsible, relatively reflective college-age person.
Like most of the academics I meet, the story that landed me in rhetoric and composition is
curvy, strange, and sometimes contradictory. I’ll spare you all that. Here’s the quickest way to
explain it, which will fill the gaps:
• I got obsessed with the Bible and how to make meaning from it.
• I eventually went to college and got obsessed with (pseudo-religious) continental philosophy.
• I taught college level writing for a couple years.
• I read about what it could mean to teach writing.
• I found this whole discipline I’d never given much thought to: Rhetoric and Composition.
• I needed my work to be meaningful in the places I’d come from, namely auto shops and other more ‘working class’ environments.
• I ended up doing work technical writing. What lead you to choose Western?
My being here is magical. In the first week of my PhD program, I asked the director to help me
get a job at Western Washington University. She smiled and said sure. I didn’t know much at
all about WWU––I didn’t really know what it meant to ‘get a job’ in this odd world. Summer
and I just wanted back in Washington and something about Bellingham and this school was
alluring. When I arrived for my visit, the choice was easy. I was perfectly comfortable here,
cozy even, which is crazy given that I should have been freaking out.
Tell us something about yourself that we might never guess?
I got ‘reported’ for throwing plastic balls at little kids when I worked at Chuck E Cheese’s. I was
in the Mouse costume and they kept pulling the tail. That hurt.
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CHRISTOPHER LOAR: Literature of the Eighteenth Century from both Britain and the Americas; Critical Theory; Political Philosophy; Gender Studies; and the Literature of Imperialism
What were you like as a young college age person? Give us a snapshot.
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When I started college, I moved from my small hometown in Kansas (pop. 2025, give or take) to
Chicago’s South Side. I was pretty green—a first generation college kid, with no real experience
with big city life. I also made another sort of transition--from being, without too much effort, an
academic standout in my high school, to sitting in seminars and lecture halls with young people
who had attended affluent public schools or elite private schools. I felt, shall we say, rather intimidated and out of place—until I found my own circle of friends who, I eventually learned, felt
just as intimidated as I did.
I came into things rather backwardly, or at least sideways. I studied history as an undergraduate, and, after deciding not to go to law school, that I might teach at the high school level. But I
realized that I’d rather teach English, so I started taking literature classes here and there. I got so
caught up in how much there was to know—how fascinating the writers were, how many layers
and how much history lay behind each text I read—that I soon realized that I needed to study
literature in more depth. I applied to graduate school half a decade after I finished college, and
was lucky enough to be accepted to some excellent programs.
What lead you to choose Western?
Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that Western chose me. I came here from a highly-ranked research university—partly because my wife already taught here, but also because I love the sense
of community and the pride of place one finds in Bellingham. We could have chosen to relocate
to Northern California, where I came from, but we prefer it here.
In addition to my biological sister, I have four adopted sisters and an adopted brother, who is 16
years younger than I am.
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ALUMNI NEWS
JUSTIN ERICKSEN: Composition and Literature, Writing Instruction, Popular Culture,
and Multicultural Literature
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I’ve loved words and reading as long as I can remember and was an English major in college. For reasons that I still don’t entirely understand, I took a twelve-year detour into law school and legal practice,
but never lost my love for reading and writing. As a law student I procrastinated by reading fiction in
bookstores, and as a lawyer I’d find myself working Shakespeare into closing arguments. I really loved the
teaching aspects of legal practice, but wasn’t crazy about the adversarial nature of the system. I’m still a
bit embarrassed and remorseful about how long it took to change gears, and a few people delicately asked
whether I’d lost my mind when I decided to make the transition, but I’m incredibly grateful that I ultimately decided to do what I always knew I really wanted to do – teach English classes.
To put it bluntly, I was kind of an immature idiot. I struggled to make the transition from high school
to college and floundered academically for the first year. I eventually figured things out somewhat, but I
don’t think I ever really appreciated the opportunities I had and the high quality of education available
to me. Reflecting on my college self only enhances the profound respect I have for my students at WWU.
They are so much more focused, motivated, and engaged than I ever was, and are endlessly impressive. I
wish I would have been more like them.
I initially chose to attend graduate school at Western primarily for the opportunity to teach, plus I’ve
always felt drawn to the school and a community I’ve been regularly visiting my entire life. I was fortunate
enough to teach here for six quarters during grad school, and loved it even more than I expected to. I
never really let myself dare to dream that I might be able to continue teaching at Western after graduating,
but the stars aligned and I couldn’t be happier about it. My favorite thing about teaching is the interaction
with students, and while many schools strive to be student-centered, I think Western really embodies that
credo. For that reason (and countless others), I think it’s a perfect fit.
I’ve officiated four weddings over the last six years. When some friends first asked me to conduct their
ceremony I learned that anyone can get “ordained” online in about 5 minutes. I was pretty nervous for the
first wedding, but it’s actually a lot of fun and all of the couples were good friends so I was in low-pressure
environments.
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MATT HOLTMEIER: Film and Contemporary Political Movements, Media from the Pacific Northwest, and Transnational Cinemas
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I’m going to admit something here that I want you to never repeat: I didn’t seriously start watching films until taking my first introductory film course in college! Of course I had ‘seen’ films
before, but during this intro class I remember going to the library and randomly checking out
films, with only a vague sense of their importance. I still remember that Bicycle Thieves (1948)
was the first film I checked out, but I don’t remember why. I guess I got lucky, huh?
Always excited about something: a book I read, an idea for a film project, a poem I was working
on, or some weird art project (that was probably beyond the scope of what I was capable of). I
was really taken with a lot of the material I read for my college classes, which engendered some
massive shifts in how I thought about the world. I still remember the first time I read Deleuze,
which is still a part of my academic work – I’m not sure I understood much of it, but it seemed
really important at the time!
I like this question, because it makes me sound like the master of my fate. The real answer is that
I’m lucky Western chose me – I’m passionate about teaching and working with students, and
Western places a real emphasis on the student experience. Though I have only been here a short
time, I feel that faculty are rewarded for being committed to teaching. The faculty at Western are
excellent researchers and writers, but it is clear that their teaching really informs the work that
they do here.
I used to practice a lot of martial arts. I do not currently, so please do not try to battle me, but I
have wanted to teach a course on ‘Martial Arts in Film’ for a long time, starting with old Kung
Fu movies and moving to contemporary films that edit the action way too much! The range of
topics from different cultural treatments of martial arts in cinema to philosophies of movement
and time would be fascinating!
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ALUMNI NEWS
DOUG PARK RETIRES FROM TEACHING
Those of you who had classes with Doug Park know that when he talked about films he loved he
became nearly rapturous; you couldn’t help but be touched by his enthusiasm and his love for the
art form.
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Tribute to Doug Park
What I always appreciated, personally, about Doug’s teaching was his ability to see the film as a whole
first, to understand its poetry, the laws it constructed for itself, and the way it functioned as an intricate
system. He understood the “sense” of a film first, its shape, its affect, its pull on the viewer. It is this reverence for the way film impacts us personally, politically, and aesthetically that I so admired in Doug’s
approach. He dared to talk about his own deeply affective responses in what was for him a very emotional art form. Very rarely do we find a teacher who is courageous enough to share his inner self with
students as a way to model “how to be in the world.” This is what Doug did when he showed students
how film could change the way they saw the world, could change their understanding of themselves,
and even affect the empathy they felt for others. No wonder students have stayed in touch with Doug
over the years, have come back to have conversations with him after they have graduated, and have even
asked him to perform in their films, which he has done upon occasion.
Beyond the environs of the University, Doug also promoted film culture within Bellingham. As an early
Pickford Cinema supporter, he provided input on film festivals, helped organize special film showings, wrote film reviews and screenplays, engaged in fundraising, and generally showed up to support
the creative efforts of those involved in local and national filmmaking. Though Doug has retired from
teaching at the University, we can all take solace in the fact that there is no way he will take a back seat
in supporting film in this community!
So, next time you’re in line to buy a movie ticket, don’t be surprised if you see him . . . he’s never been
one to miss a show.
Dawn Dietrich | Associate Professor & Director of Western Reads
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ALUMNI NEWS
JOHN PURDY RETIRES FROM TEACHING
As John Purdy retires, he leaves behind a tremendous record of accomplishment in the English Department, the University, across the state, and around the world. John is one of the foremost scholars
of Native American Literatures in the world and his teaching, advising and overwhelming generosity
have profoundly impacted hundreds of students and colleagues
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Tribute to John Lloyd Purdy
After serving in Vietnam, John earned his PhD in American Literature from Arizona State University. He
joined Western’s faculty in 1991, having previously taught in Idaho and Oregon. He served two terms as
English Department Chair and one term as Faculty Senate President. He was recognized across the University as a wise, hard-working leader.
At WWU, John has communicated the vital significance of Native American literatures in a variety of
ways. He has taught a wide range of courses in Native American literatures, Creative Writing, and American literatures. In his devotion to student learning, he has over the years regularly provided valuable opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students to join him in his research and scholarship. In order
to give students the opportunity to concentrate on Native Studies, John led and organized the successful
effort to create a Native American Studies minor at WWU. In all his work, John has been deeply informed
by his knowledge that we live on Coast Salish land. This is particularly reflected in John’s collaborations
with Northwest Indian College.
In the larger world, John has earned an impressive global reputation. He is the author of five books and
over forty chapters and articles on Native writers such as Sherman Alexie, Paula Gunn Allen, D’Arcy
McNickle, Louis Owens, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gerald Vizenor. In addition to teaching and publishing, John has served as editor of the prestigious journal Studies in American Indian Literatures and also
founded the magazine Native Literatures: Generations. John has organized panels on Native literatures nationally and internationally and has been an invited speaker for scholarly audiences throughout the world.
For all his valuable work, John has been honored by awards and grants from the National Endowment for
the Humanities, Newberry Library, Western Oregon University, WWU, and Woodcraft Circle of Native
American Writers and Storytellers. He has received multiple Fulbright awards and taught in Germany and
New Zealand. In 2005, John was appointed by Governor Gregoire to the Board of Trustees of Humanities
Washington.
John’s outstanding record of accomplishment is matched only by his kindness and good humor. We will
miss him very much and his influence will be felt in the English Department and at Western for years to
come.
Laura Laffrado, Professor of English
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Back to Bellingham 2013: Alumni and Family Weekend
The William Smith Scholarship Celebration
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Mark Sherman organized a celebration of our newly endowed professional and technical writing
scholarship. After celebrating alumni and the alumni advisory board, Nicole Brown gave a state of
the program update, and Bill presented this year’s award to Nicholas Hund. We also celebrated last
year’s winner, Olivia Mothershead, who just won the Fulbright. After that we serenaded Bill with a
very silly song, “Puff, the Magic Tech Writer.”
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2013-2014 SCHOLARSHIP & AWARD WINNERS
Nancy & Ralph Babcock Jr. Memorial Scholarship - 5 scholarships awarded to:
Anna Ulmer; Natalie Fedak; Sierra Jacob; Kaitlyn Abrams; Taryn Hendrix
Bonnie J. Barthold Award - Jolene Perry
R.D. Brown Memorial Scholarship - Alexa Peters & Anjolie York
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Ethel Grady Church Scholarship - Chanel Brown
English Dept. Tuition & Fee Waiver - Arianna Todd & Kaitlyn Lowder
Leslie Hunt Memorial Poetry Award - Lillian Wasserman & Jessica Crockett
Nancy J. Johnson English Education Scholarship - Marinel Beltran
William K. McNeill Creative Writing Memorial Scholarship - Jessica Lee & Jessica Ulmer
William K. McNeill English Literature Memorial Scholarship - Ashia Radke & Katie Savinski
James O’Brien Memorial Scholarship - McKenzie Yuasa
William Smith Scholarship in Professional and Technical Writing - Nicholas Hund
Dr. Evelyn Steger Memorial Scholarship - Sarah Maloney
2012-2013 OUTSTANDING GRADUATING SENIOR - Anna Attaway
2012-2013 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AWARD FOR
GRADUATE TEACHING EXCELLENCE - Heidi Aijala
Honorable Mention - Aubrey Hahn
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT’S NOMINATION FOR
THE PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR AWARD - Alison Cooper
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
KATIE VULIC BRINGS MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT FRAGMENTS TO CLASS
In Spring 2013, the graduate students in my English 560, “Medieval Manuscript Culture,” were given
a unique opportunity: to work with real medieval materials, including manuscript fragments (parchment leaves that have been separated from their full volumes) and incunables (the earliest examples
of European printing-press books, dating up to the year 1501).
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For this class, these students learned a variety of archival skills, including how to read and date
medieval handwriting and to recognize features of manuscript and book production. After these
lessons, the students were invited to study a few of the artifacts, which were on short-term loan to
Western from Washington State University. The goal was for the students to analyze the manuscript
pages with the intent to describe, understand, and explain as many of the pages’ features as possible.
Many of the manuscript fragments had been donated to WSU with very little information about
their origins or contents, so the students’ research into these fragments had a service-learning component to it as well.
At the end of their research, the graduate students shared the results of their analysis in a presentation in the Special Collections library that was attended by students, staff, faculty, and members of
the community. They shared representative samples of their work, and then stayed after to answer
numerous questions from members of the audience.
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
NEW COURSES: YOUR FACULTY AT WORK
In this issue of the newsletter, we wanted to highlight some of the new courses in our curriculum. The richness of these offerings conveys how our faculty constantly respond to the larger
world. In the process, they renew themselves as teachers, update themselves in their fields,
and invigorate their classrooms.
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A selection of new courses and topics that we are excited about include:
“The Ocean Is In Us: Navigations in Pacific Literature,” a 200-level GUR taught by Kristiana
Kahakauwila.
“Travel Writing in Rwanda,” a 300-level course taught by Lee Gulyas.
“Film and Contemporary Political Movements,” a 400-level course taught by Matt Holtmeier.
“Writing in the Humanities: Exploring Happiness,” taught as a 200-level GUR by Margi Fox.
“Literature of the Wartime Experience,” a 200-level GUR taught by Kate Trueblood.
“Anne Carson: Experimental Poet and Classics Scholar,” taught as a 400-level senior seminar
by Bruce Beasley.
“Cybervatos and High Aztecs: Chicana/o Science Fiction 1994-2001,” taught as a 300-level
course by Lysa Rivera.
“Literature and Philosophy,” taught as a 300-level GUR by Mary Janell Metzger.
“Tolkien’s Medieval Sources,” taught as a 400-level senior seminar by Katie Vulic.
“Persona Poetry,” a 400 level creative writing course taught by Oliver de la Paz.
“Global Citizenship,” taught as a 200-level in the GUR Strand Program by Christopher Wise
with Barbara Rofkar and Liz Mogford.
“Humor Writing,” a 400-level multi-genre creative writing course taught by Bruce Goebel.
“Writing the Novel,” a 400-level English Course offered as an Extended Education/ILearn
course taught by Sara Stamey.
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2014
ALUMNI NEWS
LEARNING AND SERVING IN RWANDA WITH LEE GULYAS
In summer 2013, Tim Costello, Director of Service Learning, and I took ten students
for six weeks in Rwanda, where we studied Travel Writing and ethical global citizenship.
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I was lead faculty for this WWU Service Learning study abroad program in Rwanda, which
combines multi-disciplinary instruction, critical reflection, and service to create a rich learning experience that fosters collaboration and partnerships. The multi-age, multi-discipline
students did great work applying Literary Theory to our classwork and our fieldwork. The
skills necessary to analyze texts and write about the world also help us in the world. I’ll be taking a new group of students in Summer 2014.
Excerpts from our Blog:
Allison Anders—Small Stories
Posted on July 28, 2013
As privileged members of Western society studying abroad in what we’ve been taught to call
“the developing world,” we are the observers who hold the power/knowledge that Foucault
describes. Reading about the Panopticon in conjunction with an excerpt of Said’s Orientalism
equipped us with some heavy theory that has accompanied and steered my thoughts and observations here in Gashora. And I am so grateful for that theory. For, as we are all constantly
analyzing and journaling and crafting creative pieces for class about the people and places we
experience each day, we have all taken on a great responsibility: to avoid using that power to
reinforce messages that are self-serving to the image of Western privilege and destructive to
the image of life that we are observing around us.
This is why writing small stories is so important. When we analyze and write with a grandiose
vision already in mind, we prime ourselves to see and think what we have already expected
to see and think; we reinforce the knowledge that we have gained from the privileged and
oppressive perspectives of society. Basically, as Wainaina would say, we “treat Africa as if it
were one country,” and we focus on poverty and desperation and blood-red sunsets (because
“readers will be put off if you don’t mention the light in Africa”).
But what is a small story? In this context, the concept of small stories stems from the questions Lee asked us in class one morning: how do we reject Orientalism? How do we reject the
reinforcement of our own power/knowledge? As writers, we can start with our senses. We can
start with images, the snapshots and smells and sounds that are strong in our minds after a
day of experiences, and write simply to describe as clearly and accurately possible. And thus,
we write what are called small stories, stories that are not based on some previous knowledge
and biases but on daily scenes and interactions. We write without vision to remove the power
structure of us versus them, of observers versus the observed. We pay attention to who has the
voice in our pieces – are we the only ones speaking? Who holds the gaze? Are we the center of
our stories? How have we conveyed the people in our stories?
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
(continued) LEARNING AND SERVING IN RWANDA WITH LEE GULYAS
Mary Drombrowski – How to Write About People
Posted on August 3, 2013
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In his satirical essay “How to Write About Africa,” Binyavanga Wainaina instructs, “African
characters should be colorful, exotic, larger than life – but empty inside, with no dialogue, no
conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause.” (The cause, of
course, portraying the ‘real Africa,’ full of the souls of hundreds of millions busy “starving and
dying and warring and emigrating” with the hopes the written account should cause the West
to send aid.) The idea, Wainaina assures, that rural people whose daily activities are largely
based in providing for their families cannot have complex ambitions is bogus. This article
is now as old as I, yet this is an idea that very unfortunately continues to be perpetrated in
much travel writing. The sense I get is that people are so consumed by survival that everything
besides necessities is an afterthought at all, an archaic misallocation of Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs. A few days ago, I had the opportunity to interview Jean Baptiste, the previously
mentioned kitchen garden superhero, who has great aspirations for his community and solid
strategies for achieving them.
Jean Baptiste is the president of the Hello Children Association, an organization composed
of the 23 children and their families living with HIV in Gashora. Jean Baptiste, his wife, and
eldest son all live with HIV. I first asked what his goals are for the future. He told me that
he hopes to continue to provide food and good health to his family and to eventually build
his own home. I then asked what his goals are for kitchen gardens. He wants to improve the
nutrition and raise the income of the families and empower them to share their knowledge of
kitchen gardens and extra produce with their neighbors. His goals as president of Hello Children are equally impressive. He plans to seek out aid for the organization, support members
psychologically, physically, and emotionally, to encourage members to have self confidence, to
create a community where they don’t have to feel alone, to provide instruction on stopping the
spread of HIV, and to finish building gardens for the 16 remaining families. The organization
wants the children to know that they can survive and to plan for their future.
Lee Gulyas —Last Day
On my last day in Gashora I walk the dirt road from Lac Rumira to town, past pineapple and
guava orchards, past the basket-weaving cooperative where we were greeted with song, past
government offices and the Genocide memorial, toward Lakeside restaurant, where we eat
lunch every day. I don’t need a map. I know where I am going, know how to get there. People
on bikes greet me by name. I see Angelique, the tailor who made my skirt, and Jean, the
fabric merchant. I hear swallows and kingfishers and the chatter of children just out of school.
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ENGLISH
2014
ALUMNI NEWS
ENGLISH TEACHER ALUMNI
ENGLISH TEACHER
ALUMNI
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Here’s our list of alumni who are currently English teachers in Elementary and Secondary Education. If you or someone you know should be on it, please let us know! We want to hear from you.
[email protected]
Baker, Laura, Bellingham High School, Bellingham WA
Baldwin (Larson), Jenni , The Overlake School, Redmond WA
Ballew (Mottola), Nina, Parkview Elementary School, Bellingham WA
Bault, Jodi, Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, Vancouver WA
Buckley, Colin, Nooksack Middle School, Nooksack WA
Busch, April, Friday Harbor High School, Friday Harbor WA
Caldwell, Natalie, Ferndale High School, Ferndale WA
Carroll, Lynn, Bellingham High School, Bellingham WA
Coats, Neva, Blaine High School, Blaine WA
Cochrun, Alison, Mountain View High School, Vancouver WA
Coulter, Grace, Kulshan Middle School, Bellingham WA
Dalvit, Kyle, Burlington High School, Burlington WA
Danforth, Paul, Burlington High School, Burlington WA
Engles, Melissa, Windward High School, Ferndale WA
Frlan, Dan, Lynden High School, Lynden WA
Gaulding, Erin, Shuksan Middle School, Bellingham WA
Geraghty, Connor, Saint Michael School, Olympia, WA
Gethyn, Chilcoat, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon WA
Green, Becky, Singapore American School
Greve, Katelyn, Roosevelt High School, Seattle WA
Hancock, Alli, Mt. Baker Middle School, Mount Vernon WA
Harron, Nolan, Allen Elementary School, Bow WA
LaBlond, Logen, Lummi School, Bellingham WA
Lantz, Katie, Squalicum High School, Bellingham WA
Lupo, Pete, Kulshan Middle School, Bellingham WA
Norem, Kate, The Bush School, Seattle WA
Shaffer, Adam, Ten Mile Creek Elementary School, Everson WA
Schoolcraft, Jodie, Kulshan Middle School, Bellingham WA
Setterlund, Todd, Burlington High School (Principal), Burlington WA
Shimer, Shirley, Windward High School, Ferndale WA
Smith, Dana, Sehome High School, Bellingham WA
Stauffer, Rob, Fairhaven Middle School, Bellingham WA
Strommer, Sarah, Shuksan Middle School, Bellingham WA
Sullivan, Katie, Chinook Middle School, Lacey WA
Trangen, Edmund, Roosevelt High School, Seattle WA
Williams, Monica, Quitman County Elementary School, Lambert MS
Yearout, Laurie, Fairhaven Middle School, Bellingham WA
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english alumni news - College of Humanities and Social Sciences

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