Alumni News

In 2020, Michelle Runyan accepted a full-time faculty position teaching in the Communications Department at Klamath Community College in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Dayna Patterson’s poetry collection If Mother Braids a Waterfall was published by Signature Books in 2020 and won the Association for Mormon Letters Poetry Prize. Her second book, O Lady, Speak Again, which began as her MFA thesis at Western, will be published by Signature Books in 2023. In addition, Dayna’s textile art appeared on the cover of the spring/summer 2021 issue of Sugar House Review.

Rose Engelfried was honored to be offered admission to the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Ph.D. program in Creative Writing and started there last fall.

Alyssa Quinn’s novel Habilis was accepted for publication by Dzanc Books and will be released in September.

Adam Kane’s illustrated poem “Expertise” appeared in the fall 2020 issue of the children’s literature magazine The Caterpillar, and he had two other sets of poems and drawings published in the spring 2021 issue of Leslie Magazine. Adam just finished his fourth year in the English Literature Ph.D. program at Boston University.

Katie Sachs graduated in 2020 from the University of Saint Francis in Joliet, Illinois, with a Master of Science in Training and Development.

Jon Kime credits Western for teaching him to write, really write, and thanks his long-retired professors for doing a great job. He has been teaching Lean Six Sigma in the Professional Development Center of the University of Washington’s Tacoma branch for ten years, and he recently had the thrill of learning to teach via Zoom in the middle of a quarter.

Heather Nisbet will attend Durham University in the United Kingdom this fall to obtain a Master’s in Literary Studies.

Alynn Sobolik’s band Of the Heavy Sun received a good amount of radio attention this past year. Their latest songs played on KEXP and were featured on 99.9 KISW’s Loud and Local podcast.

After graduating from Western, Sloane Ralston pursued a Master’s in Library and Information Science at the University of Washington, earning the diploma this summer. Sloane now works remotely and part-time for the Seattle Public Schools Archives and is looking for a full-time position in academic libraries.