We are proud of the impressive contributions our graduate students have made as scholars and creative writers. Graduate students have published their scholarly writing in journals such as Film Quarterly, Journal of African Travel Writing, Rhizomes, Words and Pictures Magazine Journal of Popular Culture, and Narrative Inquiry; and their creative work in Beacon Street Review, Creative Nonfiction, Switched-on Gutenberg, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and Willow Springs. Our graduate students' writing has also won special mention in the Atlantic Monthly's writing contests.

Graduate students have participated in national and international conferences, presenting their scholarly, creative, and pedagogical work at well-known conventions such as the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) convention, College Composition and Communication Conference (CCCC), and the regional Modern Language Association (MLA) conventions. In addition to their national scholarly and creative accomplishments, graduate students are very active in scholarly, creative, and pedagogical events in the English Department, the University, and Bellingham. Graduate students participated in the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference when it met at Western. They have also participated in university and local reading series, colloquia, and symposia. When not presenting their own work, graduate students attend the presentations of the work of English Department faculty, visiting lecturers, and nationally known scholars and writers such as Sherman Alexie, Gloria Anzaldua, Elaine Brown, Heather McHugh, and Cornel West. In 2004-05 Gerald Stern, Bernard Cooper, N. Katherine Hayles, Eduardo Cadava, Victor Villanueva, and Ruth Ozeki spoke on campus.

Individual graduate students have also brought their inventive energies to Department and University cultures. For instance, one graduate student co-created the feminist performance group, We're Not Your Mother; another organized a gay/lesbian film series; and another designed a web site, titled Virtual Ink, for his English 101 class that featured web-based discussion groups, real time chat, and links to student web pages.

English Department Graduate Student Achievements 2008-09

Matt Atwood (MA 2008) moderated the 2007 Western Washington University English Graduate Symposium and presented on the Postmodern Pedagogies panel at the symposium.  His paper, “Beyond the Binary: A Critique of the Constructed White Man in Irvin Morris's ‘Meat and the Man,’” was accepted for presentation at the 2008 Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States conference, March 27-30, 2008.  His paper, “Deconstruction and Self-Destruction of a ‘Post-9/11 World,’” was accepted for presentation at the 2008 Intermountain Graduate Conference in Logan, Utah on April 4, 2008.

Lori Brack (MA 2009) participated in the 2008-2009 Writing Instruction Co-Inquiry Fellowship Program with Professor Suzanne Paola sponsored by Western Washington University's Teaching-Learning Academy. The research, "Student Writing and Non-Traditional Writing Media and Environments," was presented at Student Voices in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Focus on Writing Symposium in May 2009. Brack presented a related paper, “Word after word after word: Altering Writing's Physicality as a Way to Experiment with Line” at the Associated Writing Program's annual conference in Chicago in February 2009. In 2008, Brack presented her co-written paper, "Transitions in Basic Writing: Rhetoric and Pedagogy" at the WWU English Graduate Symposium. Brack served as poetry co-editor of the Bellingham Review in 2008-2009. She is the recipient of a Teaching-Learning Academy Award for individual teaching for which she was nominated by an English 101 student. She presented poems at the 2008 and the 2009 Creative Writing Samplers at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Matthew Brown (MA 2009) read two poems from his collection of poetry, “Boulogne-Sur-Mer” and “Forms of Flight” at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Ian Denning (MA 2009) read from his lyric non-fiction essay “Road Does Not End” at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.  He presented his paper “Creative Writing in the Composition Classroom” at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Chicago in February 2009.

William Durden (MA 2008) had his paper, “Reading the Religious in the Victorian Gothic: Confession as Publication in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” accepted for presentation at the 2008 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference in San Francisco, March 19-22, 2008.

Spencer Ellsworth (MA 2009) won first place in the 2009 National PARSEC Writing Contest. He published a flash fiction piece in the winter 2009 issue of the online anthology FlashQuake at flashquake.org. In June 2008, he organized a seminar on “Verbal Pitching to Agents” at the Iron Springs Writing Retreat in Ocean Shores, WA. He presented “The Group: Hippie Culture and the LDS Church” at the Sunstone Symposium of Religious Studies in Salt Lake City in August 2008 and again at the Sunstone Northwest Symposium in November 2008. He was named a finalist in the international Writers of the Future contest both in the fall and winter quarters of 2007. His graphic novel review column, “Miracle Pictographs,” can be read every month in the online magazine “The Intergalactic Medicine Show” at intergalacticmedicineshow.com.

Beverly Faxon (MA 2008) presented at the 2007 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.  She Presented “Torture is a Tool: From Fox Television’s 24 to the Congressional Record, How the Unthinkable has Become the Inevitable” on the Identifying Emerging Metaphors panel at the 2007 English Graduate Symposium.  She co-wrote “Close to the Heart: Teacher Authority in a Classroom Community” and “Facilitative Authority” which was accepted for presentation at the L. Ramon Veal Research Seminar of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Fall Conference in New York City.  She read “The Day Opens Wide,” an essay from her thesis, at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Mary Hammerbeck (MA 2009) read her poems “I dream Myself Back to Sunlight” and “You Can't Get it for Free” at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Amanda Hill (MA 2008) presented, “Captivity and (Re)Mediation in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s News of a Kidnapping” on the (Re)Mediation of Captivity Narratives panel of the 2007 English Graduate Symposium.

Matt Holtmeier (MA 2008) presented “Hanging on the Edge: Diversity and Identity in the Writing Center” in October 2006 at the regional Two Year College English Association conference in Salem, Oregon.  He also presented a session in Bellingham, Washington at the Pacific Northwest Writing Centers Association conference titled “Liberating Talk: Unleashing Writing Centered Dialogue Across Campus” in April 2007.  In May 2007, he presented his paper “Scars, Cars, and Bodies without Organs: A Tetralingual Approach to the bodies of Crash” at the UCLA Graduate Student Conference in Los Angeles California.  Also in May 2007 he read a collection of poems, as well as performed Siguiriyas translated into poetry by flamenco guitarist Bob Clifton at the Western Gallery.  In June 2007, he was awarded the Teaching and Learning Academy Award for “Innovative Teaching Methods.”  In November 2007, he delivered his paper “Code, Schizophrenia, and Tetralinguistics: Exposing the Minor Literature of Titus” at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts conference in Portland, Maine.  The Leonardo Electronic Almanac will be publishing his paper “Scars, Cars, and Bodies without Organs: Techno-colonialism in J.G. Ballard's Crash” in their special issue ‘Dispersive Anatomies’ at the end of February 2008.  He presented a collection of poems at the 2007 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Morgan Tiffany Janiak (MA 2009) read a piece from her fiction novel-in-progress at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Christopher Reid Kerr (MA 2008) presented on the Postmodern Pedagogies panel at the 2007 English Graduate Symposium.  He also presented a paper titled “‘Porous with Travel Fever’: Reading Joni Mitchell's Hejira through the Beat Literary Tradition” in the Literature and Popular Music Panel at the 28th Annual Southwest Texas PCA (Popular Culture Association)/ ACA (American Culture Association) Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Coleen Kiernan (MA 2008) presented creative nonfiction literature at the 2007 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Krista Kondro (MA 2009) read “Dancing Around This Fire” a prologue to a larger hybrid of poetry and nonfiction at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Karlene Kolesnikov (MA 2008) co-wrote “Close to the Heart: Teacher Authority in a Classroom Community” and “Facilitative Authority” which was accepted for presentation at the L. Ramon Veal Research Seminar of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Fall Conference in New York City.  She also presented a work of creative nonfiction at the 2007 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Amanda Martin (MA 2008) had her paper, “Recalling the Bitch: The Arriving Werewolf Identity in Popular Neo-Gothic Novels” accepted for presentation at the 2008 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference in San Francisco, March 19-22, 2008.

Jack Meischen (MA 2008) co-wrote “Close to the Heart: Teacher Authority in a Classroom Community” and “Facilitative Authority” which was accepted for presentation at the L. Ramon Veal Research Seminar of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Fall Conference in New York City.

Jeanne Northrop (MA 2008) presented “I Don't Know if we can Trust Coyote to Handle This All on His Own” during the 6th Annual Symposium of Native Scholarship in April, and at the Native Environments Conference in March 2007 at the University of Washington.  Jeanne presented a paper in February of 2007 on memorial panel titled, “Vine Deloria, Hoax Buster,” for Vine Deloria, Jr. at the 2007 Popular Culture Conference in Albuquerque.  At the Southern Women Writers Conference in Georgia in September 2007, she read from her fiction work, “The Powwow Cookbook,” and presented “A Native Holistic Feminism” at the PAMLA conference in Bellingham in November 2007.  She has been accepted to present again in 2008 in Albuquerque where she will also be chairing a panel on Native poetry.  She has also proposed a panel on Indigenous Language and Literature of the Pacific Rim to the PAMLA conference for 2008.  Jeanne also read from her Master's thesis, “The Trickster Papers, A Narrative of Eco Justice,” a multi-genre work of traditional story telling, non fiction and poetry at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Nick Potter (MA 2009) presented his paper “‘Dad’s Bags Aren’t Going to Make it’: Deconstructing the ‘Male Gaze’ in Wes Anderson’s Films” at the 2008 meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and Arts Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina*.  In June 2008 he was awarded with an Academy Award by The Teaching-Learning Academy in recognition of collective contributions in sustaining an inclusive learning culture.

Andrew Ruppel (MA 2008) co-wrote “Close to the Heart: Teacher Authority in a Classroom Community” and “Facilitative Authority” which was accepted for presentation at the L. Ramon Veal Research Seminar of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Fall Conference in New York City.  Andrew also read a work of creative nonfiction at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Kathleen Schulte (MA 2008) was the managing editor for Bellingham Review in 2007-2008.  Kathleen also read a work of creative nonfiction at the 2008 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Alek Talevich (MA 2009) recently returned from California, where he had the opportunity to pitch his pilot web series—“Short Ends”, an eight-part dramedy set at film school which he wrote, produced and directed—to representatives from HBO and the Independent Film Channel.  His “Reading Films” multimedia instructional project, which was developed in conjunction with Western’s Center for Instructional Innovation, has been integrated into the FIGs program as part of the introduction to literary and cinematic criticism courses offered to first-year students.  An expanded version of the project’s core curriculum is being prepared in collaboration with a Burbank-based production studio as part of an ongoing development pitch with IBM’s educational software division.

Jamie Tyo (MA 2008) had her paper, “Dueling Identities: Construction of Community and Character in Plascencia’s The People of Paper” accepted for presentation at the Sixth Biennial Florida International University Conference on Spanish and Spanish-American Cultural Studies: Writing and Filming the City in Miami, March 6-8, 2008.  She presented on the Postmodern Pedagogies panel at the 2007 English Graduate Symposium.

Anthony Warnke (MA 2009) attended the “1968: A Global Perspective” interdisciplinary conference at the University of Texas-Austin in October 2008*.  He presented his paper “Constructing Whiteness in Yambo Ouologuem's La lettre à la France nègre.” In November 2008, he attended “The Future of Writing” conference at the University of California-Irvine.  He presented his paper “We Blog, Therefore We Are: Locating the Ethical in Netroots Activism.”

Chelsea Wessels (MA 2009) presented “Reiterating Subjectivity: Deleuze’s crystal-image and the viewing experience of Vertigo” in November 2008 at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts national conference in Charlotte, North Carolina*. In May 2009, she presented her paper “Situating the Face: Re-examining Faciality in La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc” during Scholar’s Week. She has served as an emcee and facilitator at the Basement Reading series, and was a Creative Nonfiction Editor for the Bellingham Review during 2008-2009.

Ariel Wetzel (MA 2009) presented “Disembody and Punish: Prisons in Space” at the 2008 Science Fiction Research Association Conference.  She also has been touring the northwest showing the documentary Ground Noise & Static, an analytical report-back of protests at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
Rachel Wolf (MA 2008) presented a work of fiction at the 2007 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Anna Wolff (MA 2008) presented two poetry pieces at the 2007 Creative Writing Sampler at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington.

Joshua Young (MA 2009) will start his MFA in poetry at New Mexico State University this coming fall with a full Teaching Assistantship. During his studies at Western, he presented "'Wildcat was written in a kind of obsolete vernacular:' Cinematic Fingerprints and Re-inventive Reiteration in the films of Wes Anderson" in November 2008 at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts conference in Charlotte, North Carolina*. His first feature film, Afraid to Merge, was completed 2007, and has started the festival rounds, including Official Selection at the True West Cinema Festival in Boise, Idaho in July 2008, and ReelHeART International Film Festival in Toronto in June of 2009. His poetry and fiction have appeared in a handful of small journals, such as Wheelhouse and Word Riot, among others. He co-founded Lines and Blood Productions with his twin brother Caleb Young, a book and film company, focusing on independent filmmakers, musicians, and artists from around the Northwest and beyond. He started the Basement Reading series last March, where poets and writers from Western faculty and student body read, as well as touring national poets. He has worked as a reader for the Bellingham Review for two years. He was awarded a Teaching Assistantship for English 235: Introduction to Native Indian Literatures with John Purdy in the Fall 2008.

*Travel support funded by the Dean Ross Travel Fund Award, WWU Graduate School.

Master's Degree in English Alumni

After the completion of their MA degrees, our students have been very successful in pursuit of their goals. Students who have received the MA in English from our program have gone to MFA and PhD programs with full fellowships at Arizona State, Columbia, Iowa, State University of New York at (Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany), University of New Mexico, Temple University, University of Arizona, University of California (Davis, Irvine, and Riverside), University of Southern California, University of Washington, Minnesota, Utah, Virginia, and Washington State University, among other schools. Others have received tenure-track teaching appointments at Northwest community colleges such as Columbia Basin Community College, Green River Community College, Highline Community College, Skagit Valley Community College, South Puget Sound Community College, and Whatcom Community College. Still other graduates are very successfully employed as technical writers for Allyis, Anvil, Boeing, Microsoft, Nike, Nokia, Verizon, and SPIE (International Society of Optical engineering), among other companies.