Student News

Tom Armistead (MAE 07) will be starting the PhD program in English literature at Ohio State University this fall. He is a recipient of the Susan L. Huntington Distinguished University Fellowship.

In August, Lorelei Blackburn (MAW) will teach writing at an orphanage in a village outside Mbale, Uganda. She hopes to blog when she visits town once a week. Those interested in reading about her experiences should email Lorelei at lblackbu@depaul.edu.

This year Colby Cuppernull presented papers (all studies of the works of Ernest Hemingway) and creative work at conferences in Hawaii, Springfield, DeKalb, and Chicago, which is ironic when you consider that he is neither an MAE student nor an aspiring literary critic but rather an aspiring starving writer. After months of waiting and the sudden sprouting of five or six gray hairs, Colby was happy to accept a fully funded position in the MFA in Fiction program at Western Michigan University. Next year he will busy himself with writing short stories, grading papers, babysitting his nephew, and planning his wedding.

Aaron Diehl and Aaron Ottinger, M.A. in English students, and Janet Sawyer, M.A. in Writing, have had papers accepted and will travel to Messolonghi, Greece to attend the 5th International Student Byron Conference from June 25-30. Diehl's essay treats "Narcissism in Don Juan"; Ottinger's essay is entitled "Byron's Retreat to Action in Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte"; and Sawyer will be discussing "The Prisoner of Chillon." The Messolonghi Byron Society is a non-profit organization founded in 1991 in Messolonghi, Greece. They are devoted to promoting scholarly and general understanding of Lord Byron's life and poetry as well as cultivating appreciation for other historical figures in the 19th-century international Philhellenic movement, idealists who, like Byron, gave their fortunes, talents, and lives for the cause of Greek Independence.

Lia Gerambia (MAE 07) has accepted a full-time teaching position at Niles West High School, where she will be teaching English and reading to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.

Tim Green (MAE 07) has accepted a scholarship to the University of Michigan's Joint Program in English and Education, where he will begin his PhD studies in the fall.

Michael Kadela's poetry has been featured in several recent publications, including Threshold 2007, Mille-Feuille 2007 (French Department's Literary Journal), and Spoken Word Revolution Redux (Sourcebooks 2007), which is currently the third best-selling anthology of poetry in the US. Also, he and Richard Jones delivered a joint-reading at The Society of Midland Authors in April, and Michael also performed later that month at The Museum of Contemporary Art.

Mike McCarthy, a first-year MAW student, has just completed his book "The Sun Farmer," the true story of an Illinois corn farmer who was badly burned in an accident. As he lay dying, unconscious, his wife--with no way of knowing how disabled or disfigured her husband would emerge from multiple surgeries--had to decide whether to let doctors enshroud his in a cocoon of artificial skind, or let him die. McCarthy is a former reporter with The Wall Street Journal, and this book grew out of an in-depth feature article about the farmer that the author wrote for The Journal. "The Sun Farmer" is published by Ivan R. Dee (ISBN: 1566637007) and is available for purchase online and at bookstores.

Aaron James Ottinger's article, "Domestic Daemons: Representations of Women in the Writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge" will be featured in the journal, Sexing the Text: Gendered Work and Working Gender, forthcoming, Fall 2007.

Sarah Riddell (MAE 07) will be attending a summer program in International Human Rights Law at Oxford. She will also attend law school in the fall.

Melanie Yergeau will be presenting at the M/MLA Convention in Cleveland this November on a panel entitled "Teaching Writing in College: Debating the Power of the Personal Voice."

After resigning from her position at Lyons Township High School after 7 years of teaching there, Emma Zone (MAE 07) was hired as an adjunct faculty member at Truman College and will be teaching composition in the Fall. This position allows her more time to spend with her son, Henry, while remaining in the teaching field on a more part time basis.