Alumni News

Former MAW student Colby Cuppernull (MAW '07) has accepted a position in the Ph.D. Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he will pursue his doctorate with a creative thesis in fiction. This fall Colby left an MFA program to return to Chicago, teach, and pursue his doctorate. He has been teaching Composition and Ethics in the loop at MacCormac College. Next fall he will have a chapter entitled "Reading Like a Writer: A Scientific Approach to Becoming a Better Writer" published in a textbook to be used in all first year writing courses at Western Michigan University.

Katheryn Giglio (MAE '98)has a tenure-track position at the University of Central Florida as an assistant professor of English. She received her MA in English with distinction from DePaul in 1998 and her PhD in English from Syracuse University in 2006.

Veda HooSang (MAE '07) and her husband, Brian, are the proud parents of Victoria, who was born May 17, 2008.

Lorie Kolak won the 2007 Doug Fir Fiction Award, sponsored by the Bear Deluxe, and the 2007 James Jones Short Story Award in the Illinois Emerging Writers Contest, sponsored by the Illinois Center for the Book and the Illinois State Library.

Melanie Yergeau (MAW '07) is finishing her first year as a PhD student at The Ohio State University. She taught three sections of first-year composition, worked as a graduate administrative associate for Digital Media Studies, and is currently holding an associate editor position for Computers and Composition Digital Press. This summer, she will be collecting literacy narratives from people with learning disabilities for the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (http://daln.osu.edu). In the fall, she will be working as a WPA for First-Year Writing and as a GA for the Digital Media Project. Melanie will also be receiving the 2008 Graduate and Adjunct Award for Service from Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy at Computers & Writing in May.