Our Graduate Students, August 2007

Travis Adams is a second year doctoral student in Rhetoric and Composition. He grew up in Eagle River, Alaska and came to UNL after completing an MA at Boise State University. Travis primary interests are the use of reading in writing classrooms, the essay, literacy, and WAC/WID. Travis spent his summer as a writing consultant in a Theoretical Ecology course.

Aimee M. Allard is a PhD student at UNL who has an MA in English from Florida Gulf Coast University. She has published essays such as "A Legacy of Word−Music: The Synthesis of Blues and Voice in Rita Dove´s Thomas and Beulah" and poetry including "Pendulum" and "Anatomy of the Gaze." Her scholarly presentations include the Popular Culture Association in the South and the FGCU Interdisciplinary conferences. Ms. Allard´s fields of interest lie in late 19th century through 20th century American Literature and in women´s studies. amallard@bigred.unl.edu.

DeAnn Allison−Cudly, a 2006 UNL graduate, worked last year as an English teacher and writing tutor for Southeast Community College. Her primary interest is the myriad ways that people communicate. She enjoys incorporating various communication themes into presentations. Last year she researched, wrote, and performed a presentation based on the linguistic tendencies of women. Her plan is to pursue her Masters degree with a focus on Rhetoric and Composition.

Lesley Bartlett is a PhD Student with an MA in English (University of Kansas) and a BA in English (Arkansas Tech University). Lesley specializes in rhetoric and composition with an emphasis in women´s and gender studies. She is also interested in service−learning and composition pedagogy.

Rebecca Bednarz is pursuing a PhD with emphases in creative writing (poetry), constructivist pedagogy, rhetoric and composition, and education more broadly. This fall, she will be teaching Intro to Poetry and working for the American Life in Poetry Project. Rebecca has been published in The Threepenny Review and DoubleTake Magazine, among other journals. Her chapbook, Camera Obscura, is forthcoming from Noemi Press.

Tamy Burnett is a literature PhD student, specializing in Women´s and Gender Studies. Her research focuses on 19th and 20th century American literature, especially women writers, and women in popular culture, with an emphasis on female action heroes. Classes Tamy teaches include first year composition, Introduction to Women´s Literature, Women Filmmakers, Women in Popular Culture, and Introduction to Women´s Studies.

Sandy Byrd is a sixth−year doctoral student. Most of Sandy´s work is in British Romantic literature and Irish literature. She is particularly interested in issues of colonial power and concepts of identity in poetry. Some of her current projects include an essay in an electronic collection of Irish women poets of the Romantic era, edited by Dr. Stephen Behrendt (forthcoming), and a website of nineteenth century Irish literature.

Perrin Carrell, a Master´s student, earned BAs in English and Philosophy from Truman State University. His primary interest is poetry, but he has presented conference papers in creative non-fiction, philosophy, and modern American literature. He also had a notable stint at the University of Ireland, Galway, in an international writer´s program.

Janel Cayer is a PhD student whose research currently focuses on formations of masculinity and femininity in both early and late American Literature. More specifically, Janel´s research explores formations of gender in fin−de−siecle scientific and medical professions as well as depictions of gender in relation to the domestic kitchen. Future academic projects include an analysis of contemporary kitchen culture as depicted in both popular and literary forms.

John M. Chavez, a PhD student, is a Colorado native. John completed his MA in Literature at Central Michigan University, where he was a King/Chavez/Parks Future Faculty Fellow, and his MFA in Poetry at New Mexico State University. His scholarly work focuses on modern and postmodern American avant−garde poetry and Latino/a avant−garde poetry and poetics, as well as how literary criticism and critical theory contextualize and explore the Latino/a avant−garde´s dissident relationship with the publishing industry and academy´s problematic notions of normative Latino/a subjectivity.

Trey Conatser is an MA student in creative writing and is currently working on a manuscript of poems that loosely engage the idea of technological supplementation. He has researched authors and issues of mid−20th century and contemporary poetry; a potential, future monograph project concerns the relationship between modernist poetry and politics in Spain. Broadly, Trey´s research interests encompass the writing and literature of poetry as well as associated criticism and theory.

Cecilia Cuevas is an MA student specializing in Ethnic Literature. Her interests include African−American Literature, Contemporary Indian−American Literature and Latin American authors. With Dr. Seanna Oakley serving as advisor, her 2008 thesis will focus on race and female sexuality in early American Blues music. She can be reached at , or at (913)271−0363.

Emily M. Danforth, a fiction PhD student, holds her MFA from the University of Montana, and has published her short fiction in a variety of venues. Her novel−in−progress, a queered−Bildungsroman, explores themes of sexual awakening and repression, coincidence vs. destiny, and small town identity politics, while featuring a shifting landscape−as−character throughout. emily is also interested in the continuous evolution and adaptation of various urban legends, their ties to the horror subgenre of "Slasher Films," and the ways in which technology has enhanced rather than hindered the spread of these FOAFS (Friend of a Friend Stories.)

Cameron Dodworth is a PhD student working in the Nineteenth−Century Studies program. His main interests within the 19th century are Victorian literature, history, and art. Within those fields, Decadence, Naturalism, Gothicism, Women´s Literature, and also Charles Dickens are of particular interest. Cameron is also very much interested in Shakespeare, African−American Literature, and 19th Century French and American novels. He received his first MA in English from UNL in 2002 and a second MA in Victorian Studies from the University of Leicester (UK) in 2003.

Whitney Douglas is a doctoral candidate whose research focuses on the rhetorical and literacy practices of feminist activists. Her research interests helped her develop a new Women´s and Gender Studies course − Activism and Feminist Communities − which she taught in spring 2007. Whitney was the recipient of the UNL Graduate Student Association´s 2006−2007 Graduate Student of the Year Award.

Amanda Drake is a PhD student specializing in Gothic British Literature and Nineteenth−Century Studies at UNL. Amanda is currently in her fourth year of teaching composition in many different versions. She recently presented a paper on the humor in Charlotte Bronte´s Villette at SUNY´s Romance Languages conference. She plans on developing publishable material from her master´s thesis on The Monk and Dracula as well as the papers she has written for classes here at UNL.

Jehanne Dubrow´s areas of expertise are contemporary poetry, Jewish literature, and Holocaust literature. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, and The New England Review. She edited an issue of Prairie Schooner dedicated to "yidishkayt" in Jewish−American poetry. She was awarded Presidential, Fling, and Othmer fellowships from UNL, and a Sosland Foundation Fellowship from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Steven Charles Edwards, a PhD student, received the 2001 PEN/Northwest Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency which afforded him the use of a backcountry cabin in southwestern Oregon for seven months. He has published stories, poems and essays in such journals as: The Cream City Review, Passages North, Sou´westerand Wilderness: The Wilderness Society Magazine. He is currently working on a short novel.

James Engelhardt is a fourth year PhD student in poetry focusing on ecopoetics as well as place−based education, critical pedagogy, and sustainability. He was awarded the initial Susan Atefat Peckham Fellowship and received a Louise VanSickle Fellowship. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including Natural Bridge and Isotope. He is currently Managing Editor of Prairie Schooner.

Alison Friedow, a second year PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric, teaches English 254, works as a consultant in the Writing Center, and serves as an executive member of the English Graduate Student Association. Among other projects, she is currently undertaking a collaborative project concerning the role of difference in the writing center. Alison´s interests include the role of difference in teaching and learning, teacher development, and writing across the curriculum. Upcoming presentations include a panel at the 2007 Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference.

Megan Gannon, a PhD student, graduated from Vassar College (BA) and The University of Montana (MFA). The recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize and an individual artist´s grant from The Arizona Commission for the Arts, her poems appear in Pleiades, Ploughshares Third Coast, Crazyhorse, Seneca Review, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, as well as The Best American Poetry 2006 and The International Journal of Feminist Politics.

Maura Giles−Watson is a PhD student who holds a thesis MA in English (UMass, Boston), an MEd in Cross-Cultural Education (National Univ.), and an ALB in Classical Civ. (Harvard). Teaching and research interests: early modern literature, drama, performance, and culture. Interdisciplinary and comparative studies, including classical and continental traditions. Epistolography, verse epistles, and letters in drama and literature. Argumentation; debate in ludic poetry and drama. Comedy, in both theory and theater, especially the comic Tudor interludes and Shakespeare. Feminist, psychoanalytical, and new historical approaches. Maura can be reached at mauragiles@post.harvard.edu.

Jeff Grinvalds is a full−time English teacher and has been working on a MA in English with a concentration in Education for about four years. He is currently working on his thesis and is a non−traditional student.

Ramon Guerra, a PhD student, has research interests that include 20th Century American Literature, Ethnic Literature, Chicano and Latino literature. His immediate work is focused on Chicana/o literature−−personal narratives of Chicanas/os in the 20th century, specifically in the Midwest. Ramon is writing his dissertation on Chicano personal narratives and is working on a chapter about his great grandfather´s tape recorded stories/conversations with a former UNL professor of English.

Whitney Helms, a PhD student, has research interests in narratology and genre in nineteenth−century British novels, a topic which she hopes to research more fully in her doctoral work. Whitney worked as a Reading Assistant at the Walt Whitman Archive and will begin her second year as a Teaching Assistant at UNL in 2007−2008. She recently presented a paper on Edith Wharton´s The Custom of the Country at the Midwestern Conference at Northern Illinois University. Please email at whittmh@aol.com.

Aaron Hillyer is a fourth−year PhD student with a research focus on contemporary American fiction and critical theory. Theorists that are currently informing his thinking and writing include Giorgio Agamben, Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin, and Henri Lefebvre. Aaron is interested in theorizing the implications of Agamben´s messianic conception of language and history for the study of literature.

Laurie Zum Hofe is a third year PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric. She is most interested in putting past educational experiences in dialogue with present classroom teaching moments and understanding more about how this kind of recursive inquiry may shape teaching, learning, and scholarship. She received her MA in Writing Theory and Pedagogy from DePaul University in Chicago, IL.

Julie Iromuanya is a fourth year PhD student with specializations in Creative Writing and Ethnic Literature. She is currently working on a novel and short story collection. Her research interests include ethnic humor, cinema, and immigration and Diaspora studies. Recently, she received Honorable Mention recognition in the 2007 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, and she was a finalist in the 2006 Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Competition.

Tyrone Jaeger is a PhD student whose work appears in Literary Review, Indiana Review, Descant, Tartts: Incisive Fiction by Emerging Writers, and elsewhere. His collection Graffiti Mouth was short−listed for the Tartts First Fiction Award and the Iowa Short Fiction Award. The Lazear Agency represents Jaeger´s novel, Dirty. He is a Maude Hammond Fling Fellow and received a UNL College of Arts & Sciences Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. tyronejaeger@tyronejaeger.com www.tyronejaeger.com

Amy Jirsa, an MA student, is fascinated with the windows opened by poetry and writing and teaching−−to inspire and to illuminate seem like the worthiest pursuits possible. Amy has been published in three (decent) journals and sends luck to her other pending submissions. She also has a great interest in French and hopes to include some aspect of it in her academic work.

Mike Kelly is a third−year PhD student specializing in Composition and Rhetoric. His research interests include institutional literacy, writing center scholarship, and the teaching of basic writing. Primarily teaching first−year writing classes, he has been involved with the TRIO program, the Alpha Project and the English Department´s Programmatic Assessment Committee. This year, Mike serves as the Associate Writing Center Coordinator.

Melissa Kleindl, a PhD student, has professional interests that include bodies, violence, language, border studies, place, religious imagery−especially in Latina/o and Native American fiction. Her presentations include "Mary Lavin´s ´Sarah´: Punishment for a Temptress or Victimization of an Unconventional Woman?" at The Eleventh International Conference on Literature of Region and Nation, 2006, and "Violence, Borders, and Mexicana Bodies in Sandra Benitez´s A Place Where the Sea Remembers" at the 18th Annual ALA Conference, 2007.

Jeff Kosse, a PhD student, is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs. He has presented conference papers on works by Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Toni Morrison; currently teaches composition and multicultural and African American literature; and is pursuing scholarship regarding representations of jazz in American fiction. Office phone: (712) 325−3709. Email: jkosse@iwcc.edu

Kathryn Kruger, a PhD student, has interests in the novel, the long nineteenth century (especially British, American, and French), religion and philosophy, narrative theory, and gender. Some of her favorite authors are Austen, the Brontes, Carlyle, Dickens, George Eliot, Flaubert, Gaskell, and Henry James. Some of her academic tangents are grammar and editing, the French language, hagiography, and marginalia. BA, Univ. of Iowa 2001; MTS, Harvard 2004. kathrynkruger@hotmail.com

April Lambert is a second−year MA student in composition and rhetoric. She is particularly interested in critical pedagogies and how they intersect with writing process movements and issues of difference. After teaching at the secondary level, she is also interested in teacher preparation/education issues and curricula and has worked with the Nebraska Writing Project and Nebraska Literature Project.

Andrea Comiskey Lawse, a PhD student in Literature, is a graduate of Creighton University (BA and MA in English). She teaches both writing and world literature at Creighton, and specializes in Ecocomposition and Ecocriticism. Her doctoral work will consider various intersections between consciousness and perception, space and place, environment, sustainability, and quantum science in American literature.

Farrah Lehman is a third−year PhD student in English Renaissance drama, with interests in performance and media theory. She presented a paper on new media readings of Renaissance drama at the 2007 Renaissance Society of America Conference and will be presenting again in 2008. Currently, she teaches English at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, NY.

Amber Harris Leichner is a third−year PhD student in American Literature with a focus on the recovery of early 20th−Century Women Writers. Her essay, "Harlem and the New Woman," is included in Teaching the Harlem Renaissance, forthcoming from Peter Lang. Her poems have also appeared in The Dos Passos Review, Relief, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Just This Proof, is available from FootHills Press.

Derek Leuenberger, a PhD student, specializes in nineteenth−century British literature, with a particular focus on British Romanticism. His research interests include the political prose of Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake´s work, and trans−Atlantic Romanticism. He is currently working on papers on the rhetorical role of America for the Romantic poets and on the structure of Blake´s Jerusalem.

Elizabeth Lorang is pursuing her PhD in nineteenth−century American literature. An assistant editor of the Walt Whitman Archive and "Walt Whitman´s Poems in Periodicals," her scholarship focuses both on periodical literature and the digital humanities. Elizabeth presented two papers, "Editing Whitman´s Poems in Periodicals" and "Digitizing Periodicals and Representing the Textual Environment," at the 2007 Society for Textual Scholarship conference. Currently, she is at work revising an essay on Whitman and the New York Herald for publication.

Jeannine Lovas is an MA student in English, specializing in Great Plains Studies, which allows her to study not only the literature of the Great Plains but also the history, ecology, sociology, politics, and agriculture of the region. Lovas delights in balancing poetry with agronomy, creative writing with history, and Plains literature with farm policy legislation. She may be reached at jlovas2@unl.edu.

Cody Lumpkin is a second−year PhD student in Creative Writing: Poetry. He is currently revising his poetry manuscript, Ode to the Eight−Track Gorilla, in order to send it out to book contests for the fall. He has also recently written critical essays on the poetry of Maurice Manning and the film career of 30´s actress Aline MacMahon. He plans to present both papers at conferences very soon.

Dave Madden is a third−year PhD student in creative writing with a focus on fiction and nonfiction. His stories have appeared in Mid−American Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, and elsewhere, and his academic work involves the contemporary novel and post−gay fiction. Currently he´s a senior fiction reader at Prairie Schooner and is working on a book on taxidermy.

Rachel May is an incoming PhD student in Creative Writing: Fiction. Rachel received her MFA from the University of Montana and spent last year in Rhode Island, where she was Writer−in−Residence at The Portsmouth Abbey School and taught Creative Writing, Literature, and Composition at The University of Rhode Island and Providence College. This summer Rachel was an instructor at URI´s Ocean State Writer´s Conference. Her stories were twice nominated for The Pushcart Prize, awarded Nimrod´s Editors Prize, and her novel was named semi−finalist in the 2006 James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She has published in Fugue, Harpur Palate, Night Train, Georgetown Review, Nimrod, and Pacific Review. Rachel is working on a collection of stories and novel.

Cindy Nelson, a PhD student, is a graduate of Chadron State College and UNL. Her areas of specialty are 19th century British literature and interdisciplinary 19th century studies. Cindy loves the Brontes and wrote her master´s thesis on the philosophy of death in Emily Bronte´s poetry. She taught high school English (all courses and grades) for two years and is currently teaching at Southeast Community College.

Dan Nowak, a PhD student, is a recent graduate of Spalding University´s MFA in Writing program. The goals he would like to achieve while at UNL are to create a publishable poetry manuscript that deals specifically with language and class, to improve on his scholarly writings, and also to join the established artistic community already in place in Lincoln while leaving his own fingerprint.

Jennifer Overkamp is a doctoral student in literature. Her interests include the nineteenth century British novel and Christian fantasy fiction. Her dissertation research focuses on the fairy tale in the works of George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. She also serves on the faculty at St. Gregory the Great Seminary.

Michael Page, a PhD student, has areas of study in British Romanticism, 19th Century British Literature and Science, Science Fiction, and Digital Texts. Michael is currently at work on his PhD dissertation, Evolution and the 19th Century British Literary Imagination, which explores the intersections between evolutionary ideas and literature from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells. He has edited a volume of the science fiction stories of Miles J. Breuer for Bison Books (now in press), has published articles on Erasmus Darwin and Mary Meeke, and has an essay for the Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period project in progress.

Megan Peabody is a third−year PhD student in American literature. Her research focuses on the means by which nineteenth century authors reckon with politics, ethnicity, and the changing American landscape, and how these various forces may alter and magnify both voice and message. Megan is also completing a collateral field in History and teaches writing and literature in the department.

Joel Puchalla is a Master´s Student in Creative Writing. Joel mostly writes poetry and creative non−fiction. His poetry tends to be free verse, with occasional forays into form. He doesn´t write exclusively about any subjects, but he often finds that his work centers on family and religion, including topics such as doubting faith, past experiences with religion, and biblical imagery.

Yelizaveta P. Renfro is working on her PhD in creative writing. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, The North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, So To Speak, and other publications. Her awards include the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, first place in the So To Speak fiction contest, and the Vreeland Award.

Beverley Rilett, a PhD student, has a research focus in 19th− and early 20th − century British and American literature. For the past two years she has been most interested in the lives and work of T.S. Eliot, Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf and George Eliot, especially in reading their literary works in conjunction with their social, historical, and biographical contexts to find instances where the authors´ actual experiences become interrelated with or mapped onto their creative work.

Zachary Schomburg, a PhD student, is the author of a book of poems, The Man Suit (Black Ocean Press 2007), the co−editor of an online poetry magazine, Octopus, the co−editor of a small poetry press, Octopus Books, and the co−curator of the The Clean Part Reading Series. He is currently working on a second book of poems as well as Russian to English translations of Chuvash poet Gennadii Aigi.

J. Conrad Schulze is a PhD student in Creative Writing. In 2007 he presented a creative work at the CEA conference in New Orleans, read his work and taught a class at the Hemingway−Pfeiffer Museum, and had a piece appear in the online journal, Freshyarn. He is currently working on a historical novel dealing with German immigrants in America during WW II.

Natalie Schwarz is a new MA student who completed her undergraduate work at UNL. Her focus in English is in creative writing, mostly in poetry. She plans to continue in creative writing throughout her graduate studies and is hopeful that more publications are in her future. Natalie was published in LAURUS The Secret Issue. She can be reached at nlschwaz@yahoo.com.

Sabrina Ehmke Sergeant is a PhD student examining literature of the First World War couched in a transnational context (specifically German literature). Interests include alternatives to the Lost Generation´s representations of WWI (including those of women, African American, and possibly American Indian authors). She is editorial assistant for the Cather Archive´s electronic edition of A Calendar of the Letters of Willa Cather and is currently working for the Whitman Archive.

Carrie Shipers is a doctoral student in creative writing with interests in poetry and creative nonfiction, particularly the uses of history, place−writing, and narrative to explore political and socioeconomic issues. Carrie is currently a Senior Poetry Reader for Prairie Schooner. Her poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review,Mid−American Review, Meridian, Quarterly West, and other journals.

Christine Shutzer, an MA student, received her BA in English with a concentration in Ethnic Literature at UNL in December of 2006. Christine´s passion lies in reading and writing about the struggles and accomplishments of marginalized persons. Her goal is to achieve her MA and PhD in English in order to teach Ethnic Literature at the college level. I hope to fight racism and discrimination by helping to open the minds of young people to perspectives that were formed by life experiences different from their own.

Vanessa Steinroetter is a PhD student and teaching assistant at UNL. She received her MA in American Literature and a Master´s degree in secondary education from the University of Eichstaett, Germany. Her area of research is 19th−century American literature and culture, with a special interest in interdisciplinary and transatlantic subjects. She has also done work on American sea literature. Email: vanessa.yvonne@googlemail.com

Scott Stenson is a PhD student in early British literature. He is interested in Renaissance, Eighteenth century, and Romantic literature. Scott currently teaches Shakespeare and Writing from Literature. His dissertation centers on John Milton´s Paradise Lost. Other academic interests include Classical and Christian rhetoric and Reader−Response theory.

Diane Sylofski is an MA student in English and is also working towards a minor in Education and a Nineteenth−Century Studies certificate. Diane works with Nineteenth−Century American texts that focus on the development of female education, both organized and unorganized. She is pursuing another degree in Recreational Administration and holds a graduate assistantship at Campus Recreation.

Sandy Tarabochia is a doctoral student in composition and rhetoric with interests in critical rhetorical education, WAC/WID, writing center theory and practice, and service learning. Sandy works with students and faculty in the biology department as a consultant and co−instructor developing strategies to make writing a central part of course curriculum. This fall she will be a teaching intern in Engl 4/880 Writing Theory and Practice for Consultants, a pilot course at UNL designed as part of the ongoing development of our Writing Center.

Joel Tomfohr, an MA student, received a BA in English with a minor in Spanish Studies from the University of Minnesota. He teaches Spanish in the Modern Languages Department by day and forges mind−blowing fiction by night. He is mainly interested in writing short stories, which have included subject matter related but not limited to dislocation, memory, consumerism, and identity.

Barbara Tracy is a PhD student with a dissertation focus in Crossroads in African American and Native American Literature. Barbara´s recent publications include "The Red−Black Center of Alice Walker´s Meridian: Asserting a Cherokee Womanist Sensibility," Cultural Sites of Critical Insight: Native and African American Women´s Writings, SUNY, 2007. She has taught for 14 yrs at Southeast Community College in Native American Literature, Women´s Literature, and Composition and as SCC Writing Center Coordinator.

Eric Turley is a fifth year PhD student in composition and rhetoric. His dissertation explores the ideology of standardized writing assessment drawing on an archival study of English Journal as well as a qualitative study of two high schools. In 2006 Phi Delta Kappan published Eric´s essay "Textural Perceptions of School Time and Assessment," and he has a forthcoming piece in English Journal on the uses of writing rubrics.

Jaclyn Cruikshank Vogt is a doctoral student focusing on twentieth century women´s literature, especially the role of violence in writing by minority women. She holds a BA from Ohio Northern University and an MA from UNL. Jaclyn has received Bailey and McPhee fellowships from UNL, a Rollins/Schoenecke travel grant from the PCA/ACA, and is an ELL tutor with the Lincoln Literacy Council.

Benjamin Vogt is a PhD student in poetry and creative nonfiction (received forms/ecoliterature). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published in Crab Orchard Review, Diagram, Fugue, Puerto del Sol, and Verse Daily. Benjamin has received a Wheeler Fellowship, Stuff Dissertation Fellowship, and a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund award. He also has a poetry chapbook, Indelible Marks, from Pudding House.

Joshua Ware is a PhD student. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in several journals & magazines, such as the Cimarron Review, diode, Harpur Palate, horseless review, Mobius, Past Simple, Sonora Review, and Word For/Word.

Sarah Weinert received a BA from UNL in 2007, majoring in English with a concentration in British literature. Sarah plans to focus her MA studies on British literature, particularly that of the nineteenth century. Her other academic interests include Renaissance literature, the rise of the novel, feminist and queer theory, and Jane Austen.

J. D. Wiley is a PhD student. His primary interest in the field of English is narrative−along with all the questions of art, craft, and pure visceral enjoyment involved. Currently he is at work on a group of interrelated novellas. Less cohesively, he is writing random short stories as they come to him. His fiction has appeared in the Cream City Review.

Scott Winter starts a doctoral degree this fall after enjoying a two−year MA program at UNL in creative writing. Scott has produced a short story collection and is close to polishing off a novel. He spent May at the Vermont Studio Center. His areas of interest are fiction, creative nonfiction, contemporary American South (Gothic) fiction and Russian literature (and language). Outside the department, Scott teaches in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, where he has taught all levels and been sent to Kosovo and Ethiopia to teach graduate students.

Laura Madeline Wiseman is a second year PhD student in poetry. She has a BS in English literature and women´s studies from Iowa State University and a MA in women´s studies from the University of Arizona. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Spoon River, The Fence, Geist, and elsewhere. www.waglerdesigns.com/lmw.