MA in Literature

Courtney Condo

   Courtney Condo

Courtney originally hails from Hudson, NH, and attended Saint Michael's College in Colchester, VT, where she earned her BA in English in 2006. She currently lives in Dover, is enjoying her second year in the MA Lit program, and is still a little uncertain about her professional future. She's currently looking into PhD programs as well as getting certified to teach (but opening a cupcake bakery with her mom doesn't sound like the worst idea, either). For now, she's always up for baking, board games, and really (reeeealllly) bad movies.

Courtney Dziuba

   Courtney Dziuba

Courtney Dziuba is a first-year graduate student in the MA Literature program. Courtney just completed undergraduate studies in May of 2008, earning her BA in English here at UNH. Among her specific academic interests Courtney enjoys Romantic and Victorian era literature as well as any and all literature pertaining to cinema studies. Ms. Dziuba's involvement in UNH campus life includes working at Dimond Library and active participation in UNH's Fencing Club, where she served as Sabre (weapon) Captain last year. In the past, Courtney has also been highly active musically perfoming in serveral varieties of ensembles ranging from Jazz Band, Concert Band, and Orchestra to Marching Band.

Johanna Pittman

   Johanna Pittman

Johanna Pittman is a first-year MA in Literature student. An Arizona native, she earned a BFA in writing and literature from Emerson College, in Boston, MA. Most recently, she worked at a high school writing center in San Diego, CA, and will continue that line of work at the UNH Connors Writing Center as a tutor and outreach presenter. Her academic interests include modern and contemporary poetry, Renaissance literature, and film. In her spare time, she takes trips to coastal Maine, listens to Neil Young, and writes poems.

 

MA/MFA in Writing

 

 

 

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   Robert Donohue

Robert is in his third year in the MFA program in fiction writing. He lives with his spouse in Stratham, NH. He grew up in Manhattan (NYC). He received a BS from Fairleigh Dickinson University and then worked in several international businesses for forty years. Robert attended the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Workshop (Poetry) and is currently working on a novel. He likes summer breaks, traveling, reading and writing fiction.

Sara Erdmann

   Sara Erdmann

Sara Erdmann is a third year MFA student in fiction.  She will graduate in December with a fantastic, ready-to-publish (ehem, ehem) novel entitled How to Go Missing and Never Be Found, as well as a nearly-completed collection of stories entitled Only Bird.  She grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire and attended Hamilton College as an undergraduate, where she majored in creative writing and minored in French.  She hopes one day to get a job that pays her exactly enough to allow her to write books about ordinary people and listen to feministy music in Canada, which is where she plans on moving if McCain is elected.

Rosanna Forrest

   Rosanna Forrest

Rosanna (Rosie) Forrest is a first year student in the MFA fiction program. She adores old time radio shows, she despises Jell-O, and she's a fair-weather supporter of most organized sports. She also teaches 401.

 

 

 

 

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   Robert Harry

Rob Harry is in the MFA program in poetry. He earned his BA in English Literature from the University of Virginia, and previously taught English and History as a teaching fellow for a boarding school in the United Kingdom. His favorite poets are W.B. Yeats, Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Wright, and Li Young Lee. When not reading or writing, he enjoys good food, good wine, and good company.

 

Jenny Lynn Keller

   Jenny Lynn Keller

Jenny Lynn Keller is in the MFA program for poetry. She received her undergraduate degree, studying poetry as well, from the University of Pittsburgh. After college she moved to NYC as part of the New York City Teaching Fellows program. For six years she taught Language Arts to seventh graders in the Bronx and Queens while obtaining her MA in English from CUNY City College. She strongly believes that teaching is an integral part of the writing process. While teaching middle school she rediscovered her love of Young Adult literature and is working on a poetic novel for teens. Her poetry has been published in the Connecticut Review, 5 AM, and The English Journal. She lives in Newmarket in a converted attic apartment with her two cats, Clark and Arnold, and is a part time substitute teacher for Newmarket School District. She loves open spaces, good food, and long drives.

 

Ed Manzi

   Ed Manzi

Ed Manzi was born in California, but has lived in New Hampshire for as long as he can remember. He holds a BA in English from UNH and a M. Ed. from Plymouth State University. He has been an English teacher at both a public school and a private school, but still has a hard time spelling and using correct grammar. He is entering his first year in the MFA program as a poet. As well as starting at UNH this fall he will be working at Oyster River High School as a paraprofessional. He is a skier, so he likes snow. His other enjoyments include hiking, traveling, painting, drawing, music, cooking and going to the beach.

 

Bryan Parys

   Bryan Parys

Bryan is a second-year MFA student studying creative nonfiction and will also be serving as the first editor-in-chief of Barnstorm, the literary journal of UNH. He is currently working on a memoir that is a (hopefully) humorous look at his being brought up as a 2nd generation Christian (meaning his parents are 1st gen). He has still not gotten used to the looks people give him when they hear what he is working on and finds that he has to 1) swear, or 2) make a comment about liking beer in order to prove that he is not a Jerry Falwell kind of Christian. Damn, he does like his dark ales. He and is wife have just exchanged the cold, suburban families of Rye, NH for the communal, post-college vibe of Dover. He recently broke a lifelong addiction to TV and now spends his free time partaking in incredibly socially conscious endeavors like learning accordion and making pickled beets.

 

Liz Ranfeld

   Liz Ranfeld

Liz Boltz Ranfeld is a first-year student in the MFA Nonfiction program. She graduated from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana and spent a few years working in the arts and education. Among other things, she edited novels, taught writing classes at a community arts center, and helped create the Lebowski Podcast, a popular monthly podcast about the Coen Brothers' 1998 movie The Big Lebowski. Three of her recent summers have been spent traveling extensively to follow the Tour de France, and she is writing a book about her experiences. Her essays and articles about cycling have been published in literary journals, in newspapers, and online at travel wesbites. She and her husband Ben, who works for the Instructional Development Center at UNH, live in Somersworth. They love movies, cooking, and the Dude, but they disagree strongly on the redeeming qualities of cats.

 

Kristina Reardon

   Kristina Reardon

Kristina Reardon is a first-year MFA student in fiction. While she is open to new ideas for writing, she primarily fictionally re-imagines her mother and grandmother’s immigration experiences to the U.S. from the former Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1960s. She earned her BA summa cum laude from Providence College in 2008 as a member of the Liberal Arts Honors program with a double major in English and Spanish and a minor in women’s studies. She won first place in fiction and prose poetry in PC’s student writing contest this past spring. She also won the St. Catherine of Siena Award in Women’s Studies, the Paul van K. Thompson Award for excellence in literature, and the Rene E. Fortin Essay Award for her senior thesis at graduation. While at PC, she served as fiction editor of its international literary journal, The Alembic, as associate editor-in-chief of its student newspaper, The Cowl, and interned at ABC-6 in Providence and at Rhode Island Monthly magazine. She writes a weekly column for the Villager Newspapers and Stonebridge Press groups in Massachusetts and Connecticut. She hopes to travel to Slovenia and Croatia this summer to research and get inspiration for more short stories.

 

 

 

 

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   Sue Reynolds

In her final year of her MFA in Poetry, Sue is teaching 501 and can hardly wait to hold that Final pack o' poems in her hand in June. She cooks and eats everything edible but parsnips and caviar, loves dogs, rock stacks, the sky reflected on the ocean and floating in the ocean, peonies, primary colors. Stanley Kunitz sits at the head of her table.

Travis Taylor

   Travis Taylor

Travis Taylor is a first-year MFA fiction student. He was born and raised in northern lower Michigan. He attended Grand Valley State University before moving to the southeast corner of the state where he spent the last three years anxiously awaiting his wife’s completion of law school. He has been many things, including: stone mason, salesmen, UPS employee and copywriter. He abides crosswalk signals to a fault, and drinks with ease. Provocation for writing fiction can be blamed squarely on William Faulkner, Mary Gaitskill, Charles Baxter, Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, Richard Ford, Jim Harrison and Kurt Vonnegut to name a few.

Patrick Weatherly

   Patrick Weatherly

Patrick is a first year MFA student in Poetry. He moved to New Hampshire from Huntsville, Alabama, where he spent time working in food service after earning a BA in English from Auburn University. In 2007 he was awarded the Robert Mount Hughes Prize in Poetry. His other interests include independent film, Ultimate Frisbee, The Phoenix Suns, losing his keys/wallet/phone, and regional cuisines with specific interest in Cajun and Creole, traditional soul food of the Deep South, as well as Turkish (and other Southern European) pastries and deserts. Poets he continues to enjoy: Jason Bredle, Leigh Stein, Bob Hicok, Harryette Mullen, Dean Young, C.D. Wright, Allen Ginsberg, etc.

MA in Language and Linguistics

Brooke Ricker

   Brooke Ricker

Brooke Ricker is in the first year of the Masters in Language and Linguistics. She grew up in the great state of Alaska and graduated from Stanford University in 2003 with a BA in Sociology and a minor in Latin. After graduation, she held various teaching jobs in the Bay Area before spending a year teaching English in the town of Vladimir, Russia. Brooke is interested in semantics, etymology, sociolinguistics, and how all of the above can improve ESL teaching methods. She is currently teaching first-year writing for international students at UNH.

Sarah Villard

   Sarah Villard

Sarah Villard is from Etna, NH and is in her second and final year of the MA program in Linguistics at UNH. She has a particular interest in theories of first and second language acquisition, as well as in syntax and language universals.

Sarah received her BA from SUNY-Binghamton in 2003 with a major in English and a minor in Judaic Studies. In 2006-2007, before beginning her MA, she spent a year teaching English in Suzhou, China. She now continues to teach ESL at UNH, and also works in the Writing Center here. Sarah loves traveling, skiing, biking, and studying Chinese.

PhD in Literature

Kim Dougherty

   Kim Dougherty

Kim Dougherty is pursuing a second career in academics after retiring from the Air Force. She served for 22 years as a Navigator on the KC-135 aircraft, directing in-flight rendezvous with other aircraft to provide aerial refueling. Kim gained teaching experience as a Flight Instructor, teaching other navigators in the classroom, in the air, and in simulators. She participated in most of the air operations of the last two decades, flying missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and coordinating her unit response on 9-11.

Since retiring, Kim obtained an MA from The College of New Jersey, and has been living in Boise, ID and teaching first-year writing at the University of Phoenix and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Kim has presented papers on Frank Norris and Jennifer Johnston. She is a first-year PhD student, interested in America's frontier mentality and its relation to empire. She is married to a retired Air Force officer, has a stepdaughter at NYU, and enjoys fly-fishing, hiking, skiing and snowshoeing.

Katherine Gillen

   Katherine Gillen

Katherine Gillen is in the third year of her PhD program in Literature. She studies early-modern literature, particularly drama and writing by women. She is interested in social transformation during the period, and therefore adopts Marxist, New Economic, and New Historicist approaches in her writing (with some feminism and queer theory thrown in). Other areas of interested include eighteenth-century literature (particularly works by women; even more specifically Eliza Haywood), rhetoric, and writing center theory. Katherine is currently teaching a survey of early British literature, and she works at the Writing Center. And – most importantly – she is the co-president of EGO.

Christina Healey

   Christina Healey

Christina is a doctoral candidate and is in her fifth year of the PhD in Literature program. Her dissertation explores depictions of landscape in 19th-century American women's writing alongside contemporary archaeology, geology, and antiquarianism. She is interested in eighteenth-century studies, natural history, theories of space and place, ecocriticism, and the challenges of being a woman and a mother in academia. Christina's article ''A Perfect Retreat Indeed': Speculation, Surveillance, and Space in Defoe's Roxana'" will appear in the Winter 2009 issue of Eighteenth-Century Literature. She has presented at a number of domestic and international conferences and is a regular participant at the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biannual conference. In 2006 she was honored to receive the Fanny Delisle Prize for Best Graduate Student Essay and a summer research fellowship from the graduate school. In 2008 she was awarded a University Dissertation Fellowship for her final year in the program. Christina has taught both of the American literature surveys as well as Intro to Critical Analysis, Creative Nonfiction, and the First-Year Writing Seminar.

 

 

 

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   Matt Hurwitz

Matt Hurwitz, vice president of EGO, is in his fourth year of UNH’s PhD in Literature program. This past spring he successfully passed his qualifying exams and is now beginning work on his dissertation in the fields of 20th century British literature, English national identity, theories of nationality and globalization, and tropes of tourism, travel, migration, and displacement. He has recently presented a paper entitled “Space, Island, Postcard: Traveling Through Derek Walcott’s Omeros” at Tulane University. He has also written recently on the relationship between Englishness, modernity, and colonial Indian space in Anglo-Indian Mulk Raj Anand’s 1936 novel Coolie. He has been a recent recipient of a UNH Summer Fellowship and was chair of the 2008 Graduate Student Conference, “Challenging Faith: Belief and Doubt in Literature, Composition, and the Profession.” Matt is currently teaching “Introduction to Literary Analysis”; in the past he has also taught “First-Year Writing” and “Survey of British Literature 1800-Present” at UNH. This year marks his 10th year of teaching.

 

 

 

 

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   Nicola Imbracsio

Nicola M. Imbracsio is in her fourth year in the PhD Literature Studies, focusing on early modern British drama. She received her Master of Arts in English from University of Massachusetts, Boston, and her Masters of Fine Arts in Performance from Emerson College. Her research interests include performance theory and history, the spectacle of the body, and acts of commemoration in early modern culture. Her article, “Secular Relic: The Spectacle of the Body in Decay on the Jacobean Stage,” appears in a collection of essays, Power & Image in Early Modern Europe. She is currently working on her dissertation: “Corpses Revealed: The Theatrical Corpse on the Early Modern English Stage.” Nicola is the proud recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award from UNH’s graduate school. She has served as co-president of the English Graduate Organization (EGO) and is currently the coordinator of Professional Development for the EGO. When not working on her dissertation, teaching, or organizing Nicola enjoys wandering in record stores, watching b-horror flicks, collecting mid-century kitsch, and performing in local theatre and independent film.  

Melissa Siik

   Melissa Siik
   (Femino)

Melissa is a PhD candidate in the literature program. She received her BA in English from Saint Anselm College (2002) and MA in English Literature from UNH (2004). She is currently working on her dissertation, “’The Alien at Home’: Residual Catholicism and the Formation of National Identity in Post-Reformation England” [working title]. Her focus is on Early Modern British literature, specifically the works of Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spenser. She has presented papers at a number of conferences, including those at Yale, UPenn, the University of Toronto, and the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies. Her publications include several articles she contributed to a 2007 literary companion to sixteenth-century poetry. In her seven years at UNH, she’s taught numerous sections of the Survey of British Literature to 1800, Literary Analysis, and Freshman English. Last year Melissa married her high school sweetheart, who is fortunately a successful Financial Planner, thus giving her the rare opportunity to take a few years off from teaching to write and raise their new baby girl, Amelia.

PhD in Composition Studies

 

 

 

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   Mike Garcia

Mike Garcia is working on his dissertation in the PhD in Composition Studies program. He received his MA in Rhetoric and Composition from Washington State University. His interests include the assessment and grading of writing, with a focus on student self-assessment; the postmodern textuality of the "digital age"; the status of the profession; and writing program administration. His dissertation explores the political and ethical implications of including student self-assessment in writing courses. Mike has presented on these topics at regional and national conferences such as the UNH Composition Conference, Computers and Writing, the Writing Program Administrators' Conference and the Conference on College Composition and Communication. He has taught First-Year Composition, Creative Nonfiction and Technical Writing. In addition, he is the associate director of the UNH University Writing Program, and in that capacity administers Four Years of Writing, the UNH longitudinal study of student writers. He also coordinates campus-wide faculty workshops in the teaching of writing. And by the way, he runs this website for EGO.

 

 

 

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   Alexandria Peary

Alexandria Peary is at the exam stage of her PhD degree in Composition. She holds two MFAs in Poetry, and her first book, Fall Foliage Called Bathers & Dancers, will be published in Fall 2008. A chapter on teaching undergraduates writing for publication is forthcoming in a collection from NCTE. Her other writing has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, New Hampshire Magazine, Teaching Sociology, J.A.E.P.L, The Massachusetts Review, jubilat, Poetry Northwest, Spoon River Review, Fence, Stand, and Preemie Magazine and other places. She directs the Writing Program at Daniel Webster College.

Meagan Rodgers

   Meagan Rodgers

Meagan Rodgers is a doctoral candidate in the Composition Studies program. She's currently writing her dissertation (working title: "Analyzing White Educational Discourse in a First-Year Writing Context") and serving as the Assistant Director of Composition. Meagan holds a BS in Business Administration from Ohio State (she was an accountant in a former life) and an MA in English from the University of Akron. When not dissertating, she's likely either watching Battlestar Galactica or telling others why they should be watching it.

Jim Webber

   Jim Webber

Jim Webber is a third-year PhD student in the Composition Studies program. He writes about political rhetoric, education policy, teacher education, and relationships between high school writing teachers and the disciplines of college composition and rhetoric. Mike DePalma, Jeff Ringer, and Jim wrote "(Re)Charting the (Dis)Courses of Faith and Politics, or Rhetoric and Democracy in the Burkean Barnyard," which appears in the Summer 2008 issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Jim is currently revising an essay on politics and English education policy for English Education.

Maja Wilson

   Maja Wilson

Maja Wilson is a first year PhD student in composition studies. She has worked in Michigan's public school system for 10 years, teaching high school english, alternative education, adult basic education, and ESL. She is interested in examining how assessment policy either undermines or supports our goals and values as educators and citizens, and in finding ways to develop teacher agency in institutions designed to thwart it. Her published works – including Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment, published by Heinemann in 2006 and recipient of NCTE's 2007 James Britton award – began with a feeling of frustration. When she is particularly caffeinated, she has grand delusions of being Obama's education advisor. She enjoys reading and swimming with her two sons, gardening, and taking long walks in the fall.

 

Past students

Kate Abbott finished the MFA program in Fiction. She's had fiction, poetry and nonfiction published in the Comstock Review, Entelechy International, The Berkshire Review and qarrtsiluni, among others, and accepted for an anthology, The Farmer's Daughter. Before she came to UNH, she spent four years as a reporter and Associate Editor of the Berkshire Advocate, an independent weekly paper.

Yassmeen Abdulhamid graduated from the MA program in Literature. In 2005, she earned her BA in English at SUNY Plattsburgh in upstate New York, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. Yassmeen was awarded the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Student Excellence during her last semester at Plattsburgh, and she was also the recipient of the 2006 Phi Kappa Phi Award of Excellence. During her senior year, she completed an undegraduate honors thesis entitled, "'My cherished preserver': Uncovering the Parasitic Male in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and The Professor." Yassmeen taught one section of First-Year Writing per semester at UNH and her research interests include 19th-Century British Literature and the construction of gender identity in both fiction and non-fiction.

Rachael Berkey graduated from the MA program in English Literature. She is originally from Cleveland, OH and spent four years in upstate New York attending St. Lawrence University for her undergraduate degree. Her scholarly interests include early modern drama, eighteenth century novels and postcolonialism with a focus on feminist issues. She taught First Year Composition.

Keith M. Botelho graduated from the PhD program in Literature with a focus on Renaissance and Early Modern Literature. His dissertation, completed on a fifth-year dissertation fellowship, was entitled, "Rumor, Gender, and Authority in English Renaissance Drama." His articles have been published in Comparative Drama and English Language Notes, and two shorter essays have appeared in The Age of Milton: An Encyclopedia of Major 17th-Century British and American Authors.

Jeff Covington graduated from the MA program in English Literature. Originally from (outside) Richmond, Virginia, Jeff earned his BA in English from James Madison University. His interests include twentieth-century literature (sort of a transatlantic studies approach), war and subjectivity, and all realms of literary theory (but particularly psychoanalysis, gender, and aesthetics). He has presented on a wide array of topics—i.e. W.G. Sebald and memory, eighteenth-century libertine literature, Whitman and flaneurism, and ontological readings of Brian Friel's plays—at various national and international conferences. He wrote his thesis on affective renderings of "shame" in gendered Modernist war poetics.

Michelle Cox graduated from the PhD program in Composition Studies. Her research interests include second language writing, Writing Across the Curriculum and workplace writing. Her publications include "Reading an ESL Writer's Text," co-authored with Paul Kei Matsuda and published in ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors (2004), and "Writing for the Clinical Practicum," co-authored with Cinthia Gannet, Amy Plante and Jeanne O'Sullivan and published in The CSD Survival Guide (2005). Michelle Cox has presented her research at CCCC, American Speech Hearing Association, Northeast Writing Center Association, National Writing Across the Curriculum Conference, and Conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Language and Learning (otherwise known as Inkshed). Her dissertation project, When the Workplace is on Campus: Learning to Write for a University Speech-Language Clinic, focused on how the overlapping academic and workplace activity systems in this clinic affect the ways that writing is shaped, taught, learned, and perceived.

Meredith Dunham completed the MA program in Literature. She is a New Hampshire native, although she received her BA in English and Religion from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Her interests include British Victorian Literature, Theology and Theodicy in Literature, and Contemporary British and American Literature. She plans to pursue a career as a secondary school English instructor.

Tim Horvath completed the MFA program in Fiction. While at UNH, he wrote and revised his novel, Goodbye in Many Languages, which is populated by conservatory musicians, volatile chemists, new agey goth kids, urban spelunkers, alienated actors, rhesus monkeys, and foodie truckers. He has published several short stories, including "The Understory," which received the 2006 Raymond Carver Prize. He taught Creative Nonfiction at UNH and spent a year as a counselor in a psychiatric hospital. His preoccupation with cognitive neuroscience appears to be incurable.

Rachel Israelson completed the MA program in English Literature. She is from Westbrook, ME and received her BA in English and History from the University of Rochester. She is interested in Renaissance literature with a particular focus on gender representation and identity. She later plans to pursue a career in teaching.

Alison "Abby" Knoblauch graduated from the PhD program in Composition Studies. She received her MA in Literature from UNH, and BA in English from Northland College. Abby's dissertation explored intersections and implications of feminist rhetorical theory and pedagogy. Her interests include feminist theory, pedagogy, and rhetoric; teacher development; and popular culture. Abby has presented on the first-time teaching experience, embodied rhetoric, the uses of popular culture in the composition classroom, and Samuel Richardson's Pamela. She has also co-edited a book entitled What to Expect When You're Expected to Teach: The Anxious Craft of Teaching Composition. Abby served as Assistant Director of the Composition Program and co-president of the English Graduate Organization. She taught first-year composition, creative nonfiction writing, critical analysis, the writing studio and persuasive writing at UNH.
Ken Lambert completed the MA program in English literature. He is originally from Jaffrey, NH and received his BA in French from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH. He is interested in comparative literature, especially the postcolonial literature produced in French and English. Ken is the Graduate Student Organization's representative to the Honorary Degrees and Awards Committee and assists in the school's ESL program. Hannah Larrabee graduated with an MFA in Poetry. She was born and raised in Maine and received her BA in Philosophy at UNH. She greatly admires the work of William Stafford, Richard Hugo, Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara and Franz Wright. Although she has only recently begun the process of publication, one of her poems was a semi-finalist for the 2006 Indiana Review Poetry Prize.

Lisa Litterio is from Reading, MA and graduated from the MA program in Literature. She received her BA from the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA) Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa in the College Honors Program. At Holy Cross, she was a writing center Head Tutor for three years, a teaching assistant for a three week intensive composition summer course, and a writer and editor for The Crusader newspaper. She was also published in Creative Communication's Spring 2004 Poetry Anthology for original poetic work entitled "Vision of God." She has an interest in rhetoric (from her classical background), pedagogical issues, and British Literature. At UNH, she was a tutor in the Connors Writing Center and an editorial assistant to a professor.

Darcy McLaren, of Raymond, NH, completed the MA program in Literature. She graduated from Emmanuel College (in Boston, Massachusetts) with a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature and Secondary Education, and is a licensed English educator for grades 8-12. During her senior year of undergrad, she had the wonderful experience of teaching 9th and 11th grade English at Boston Latin School. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and with honors for her recent completion of a year-long Distinction in the Field research project focusing on why high school students cheat academically. Her primary literary interests include the Harlem Renaissance, the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the persuasive strategies of rhetoric.
Kate Megear graduated from the MA program in Writing. She is from New York City and received her BA in English from the University of Virginia. Kate writes both fiction and poetry, and enjoys teaching, letter writing, typewriters and garage sales. She has taught fiction at The Young Writers' Workshop in Charlottesville, Virginia, in addition to teaching a university seminar on moral issues at UVA. She has been published in several small-scale literary magazines and has read at dozens of organized reading events. Her favorite writers include Hemingway, Salinger, Frank O'Hara, Robert Hass, Charles Simic, John Irving and Lorrie Moore. Mike Michaud graduated from the Composition Studies PhD program at UNH. He received his Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Iowa and taught high school English for one year before returning to work as an adjunct/lecturer at UNH, St. Anselm's College, Boston College, and the College for Lifelong Learning (CLL). He has designed and taught courses online for CLL. His academic and professional interests include issues of adult and workplace literacy, constructions of masculinity, histories of composition, technical writing, composition pedagogy and the disciplinary status of the first-year course. He has presented papers at local and national conferences and currently teaches technical writing at UNH.

Christina Ortmeier graduated from the PhD program in Composition Studies. She is interested in second language writing and immigrant literacy. At UNH, she taught Composition and English as a Second Language. She also worked as a writing consultant for the Connors Writing Center and a Writing Fellow for the Communication Disorders Department. She published "Project Homeland: Crossing Cultural Boundaries in the ESL Classroom" in TESOL Journal on using the writing process with middle school ESL students. Her work was also presented at the 1999 TESOL and 2000 Northern New England TESOL conferences. She also participated in a panel on Writing Across the Curriculum initiatives at the 2001 Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. For her dissertation research, she worked on case studies of immigrant ESL students in Composition courses.

Suzanne Philbrick completed the MA program in Literature, and hopes to continue with a PhD in Composition Studies. She taught First-Year English as a TA, and was also a Developmental English and Academic Self-Management lecturer for the University of Southern Maine. She returned to college nearly 20 years after graduating from high school, and graduated Summa Cum Laude with English Honors from the University of Southern Maine, where she worked as a writing and ESL tutor. She is a Phi Kappa Phi member and received the C. Elizabeth Sawyer Scholarship from USM.

Katie Raynes graduated from the MA program in Literature. She grew up in Kittery Point, Maine, and received her BA in English from the University of New Hampshire. She is particularly interested in Early Modern Drama and hopes to explore the field more fully, but her interests also include the Romantic poets and the 19th century novel. She approaches these areas from a queer studies perspective. Her other interests include animation, the graphic novel, and Japanese culture, history, and language. She worked at the Connors Writing Center and at the UNH Center for the Humanities.

Laura Smith graduated from the PhD program in Literature. She studies nineteenth-century American women's literature and its concern with domestic space and furnishing. She studies the intersection of literature and material culture, and has a corollary interest in the literature and lifeways of the Shakers. She has written and presented on works by Caroline Kirkland, Elizabeth Stoddard, and Willa Cather.

Cara Snider is a life-long Nittany Lion from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the MA program in Literature. Her interests include many aspects of religion and 20th century American literature, and recent projects involve concepts of grace and sacrifice in Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise and issues of core confrontation between faith and art in Potok's My Name is Asher Lev. Cara is also interested in Native American literature, such as Samson Occom's typological view of New England Protestantism. In addition to teaching First-Year Composition, Cara was co-social chair of the English Graduate Organization at UNH. During the summer, she taught Literature and Composition for UNH's Upward Bound summer program.

Jason Tandon graduated from the MFA program in Poetry. He received his BA and MA in English from Middlebury College. His poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Euphony, Regarding Arts & Letters, Folio, Broken Bridge Review, Del Sol Review, Good Foot, Pavement Saw, Bayou, Cairn and elsewhere. He taught composition and Intro to Critical Analysis at UNH and was an intern poetry editor at The Paris Review.

Katherine Tirabassi graduated from the PhD program in Composition Studies. Her research interests include Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Theory and Practice, and Historical Studies, and she has presented on these topics at CCCC, NEWCA, NNETESOL, and the bi-yearly UNH Composition Conferences. Katherine taught First-Year Writing, Technical Writing, Creative Nonfiction, Critical Analysis and Writing Consultation at UNH, and served as Assistant Director for the Robert J. Connors Writing Center. Her publication "It Might Come in Handy: Composing A Writing Archive at the University of New Hampshire: A Collaboration between the Dimond Library and the Writing Across the Curriculum/Connors Writing Center, 2001-2003" was co-authored with John C. Brereton, Cinthia Gannett, Elizabeth Slomba and Amy Zenger and appears in Centers for Learning: Libraries and Writing Centers in Collaboration (2005). Her dissertation project, Revisiting the Current-Traditional Era: Innovations in Writing Instruction at the University of New Hampshire, 1940-1949, derew on archival research, alumni interviews, and 1940s journals to explore the institutional writing culture of UNH, and to expand the ways that we conceive of, study, and write about historical and current shifts in writing instruction.

Amy VanHaren graduated with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She has little ability to sit still or stay inside. She has lived in six different states from Michigan to Hawaii; traveled to over 13 different countries; competed in five triathlons and one marathon; hiked Mount Washington in winter whiteout conditions; and worked with George Clooney. During her time at UNH, she worked on a book about a New Hampshire volunteer search and rescue team. She was director of the Connors Writing Center and associate editor of N’East Magazine. Her articles appear frequently in AMC Outdoors.

Laura Waldon graduated from the MFA program in Creative Nonfiction at UNH. She taught composition at UNH and finished a book about the battle over same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, as told through the stories of the people who fought on the frontlines of the battle. She is co-director and creator of UNH’s Online Writing Lab, and is the former associate director of the Connors Writing Center. Prior to coming to UNH, Laura received her BA in English and Sociology from Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Before moving to her current home in Massachusetts with her wife, Emily, Laura worked for four years as a journalist and freelance magazine writer in the Twin Cities, where she got to do fun things like fly a plane, shoot a sub-machine gun, and pretend to be a firefighter – all in the name of work.

Kuhio Walters graduated from the PhD program in Composition Studies. He taught Composition, Introduction to Prose Writing, Introduction to Literary Studies and Critical Analysis at UNH. He has presented papers at various conferences on ethnography, photography and critical theory in Composition, and on the role of mass media in shaping the "exotic" in the American imagination. He investigates the history, theory and practice of photography in the writing classroom.