Alumni News

June seems to have been a good month for our former graduate students, with lots of news to report:

To begin with, as of mid-June, Heather Zias (Ph.D. 2009) is officially an Assistant Professor of English at Lancaster Bible College in Lancaster, PA, a permanent, fulltime position. She and Anthony (Ph.D. 2008) will move to Bel Air, MD, so that she can commute to Lancaster and he can commute to Coppin State in Baltimore. Anthony reports that their new townhouse is very comfortable. If you're spending the summer following your favorite singer around the country, they might let you camp in their parking lot while you're attending "Josh Groban: Live at Lancaster" if you ask nicely.

There is also news from Kelly and Joe Moffett.

Kelly ( MA 2001, MFA 2004) is now a new Assistant Professor of English at Northern Kentucky University. I'll give you the details in Kelly's own words:

"After four years part-time and two full-time, tenure-track years at Kentucky Wesleyan College, I decided to go on the job market. My first choice was Northern Kentucky University, since my work with Kentucky women writers and the Kentucky Foundation for Women has given me a desire to remain in Kentucky and to be called a Kentucky writer. After an intense interview process, I was offered a position to teach graduate and undergraduate creative writing classes and serve on the MA committee at NKU! I already love my new colleagues and I am going from a small school of 800 students to 17000 and from a total of 40 faculty members to 35 colleagues only in English. And what's more: George Clooney attended NKU! What more could I want?? : )"

I also asked Kelly about her publications to date and what she's currently working on. She has a book out from Cinnamon Press, Waiting for a Warm Body to Fill It, and she is currently finishing her "second collection of poetry, mostly written while on retreat at either St. Meinrad or Gethsemani monasteries, that is tentatively titled Reliquary."

Joe (Ph.D. 2004) just got tenure at Kentucky Wesleyan, but, as Kelly put it, he's "leaving tenure to be with his wife." He'll teach a couple of classes at Northern Kentucky next year and continue to work on his research. Kelly also gave an update on that:

Books:

Understanding Charles Wright (University of South Carolina Press, 2008)
Search for Origins in the 20th Century Long Poem (WVU Press, 2007)

Current Projects:

Co-editor for a special issue of Genre on Genre Poaching in Contemporary Fiction (in press--an issue in which Anthony has an essay coming out, by the way)
Editing a collection of essays on "The Wasteland" for Rodopi
Writing a book on spirituality and the long poem
Just published an essay on Charles Wright in Southern Literary Journal

In case you were wondering, NKU is just outside of Cincinnati if you're planning on attending "Josh Groban: The Cincinnati Sessions."

Needless to say, the Tenants are very pleased that everyone is doing so well.