Ari Koontz (BA, 2018) has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Under the Gum Tree for the creative non-fiction piece, “Bodies of Water.” Additionally, her essay “Uprooting” has been nominated by Sweet Tree.
Margi Fox
Margi Fox has been teaching in the English Dept. since 2006, with a specialty in professional and technical writing. She will retire at the end of the 2018-19 school year. We caught up with Margi to ask her a few questions as she embarks on this next phase of life!
How long did you teach at WWU? What brought you here?
I came to Western in 1974 and earned my undergraduate degree from Huxley in 1976. During my senior year, I took creative writing classes and realized I should have been an English major. In 1984, I returned to Western, caught up on English classes and went into the master’s program, where I discovered my love of teaching. I taught here for a few years after graduation, then moved on to professional writing–as a writer, editor, and teacher.
When a position came open in the professional and technical writing program in 2006, I came back to Western and the English Department. The past thirteen years here have been the most wonderful of my career.
What were some of your favorite moments from your career at WWU?
There are so many favorites! Here are a few:
- Interactions with students are at the top of my list. I’ve met so many engaged, kind, thoughtful, smart students who’ve inspired me.
- Hiking field trips with students were terrific. We roamed the trails in the area together, discussing the effectiveness of trail signs, and a wide assortment of other topics. I only wish I could have done more of the field trips!
- Having the opportunity to do a TEDx talk about wills in 2015 was a highlight.
- I have also loved interactions with colleagues. I’ve never had a day on campus without a meaningful conversation. I’ve also appreciated how much faculty and staff in the English department care about students and find joy in the subject matter.
What is your secret “super power”? Tell us something that others may not know about you.
I was on the first women’s trail crew in the United States Forest Service in Idaho’s Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness. In 1973, I spent five months out on trail without ever returning to civilization. My superpower is that I’m happy living outdoors for long periods of time, comfortable with eating terrible food and being dirty, and able to pace myself when climbing high mountain passes. Most importantly, I’ve been able to immerse myself in what writer Sigurd Olson called “The Great Silence.” (These abilities apply to the final two questions.)
What stirs joy within you outside of your work?
I love being out hiking, whether it’s deep in the wilderness or in the nearby Chuckanut Mountains. I’m so grateful for all the public lands in our area and in the country.
What will be your next adventure?
- I hope this summer and fall to backpack as much as possible. Depending on the fire season, I plan to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington (or Oregon or California).
- During the next year, I intend to try writing fiction, something I haven’t done for decades. I’d like to infuse my research and insights about wills into imaginary worlds.
- Finally, I’ll explore where I can make a contribution. Right now, it’s a little like graduating from college as I try to figure out what to do next with my life.
Nancy J. Johnson
Nancy Johnson has been a professor in the English Dept. for 25 years, with specialties in English Education, and Children’s and Young Adult Literature. She retired at the end of Winter quarter 2019. We caught up with Nancy to ask her a few questions as she embarks on this next phase of life! (See also the “Gratitudes” page for information on a new Endowment set up in Nancy Johnson’s honor.)
How long did you teach at WWU? What brought you here?
In 1993 Seattle hosted the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Convention. Bill Smith approached me at the conclusion of a session I moderated suggesting I apply for an English Education opening at WWU. I didn’t know Bill at the time but was flattered that he sought me out and charmed by his kindness (which I appreciated even more as his colleague). But, the timing? It just wasn’t right. I had recently received tenure at Seattle Pacific University. I was getting married in a month. And we just bought a house. But … Bill persisted, contacting me one month later and flattering me with “you’d be perfect for this job and our students” praise. I applied, was hired, and started what became a 10-year commute from Seattle to WWU and a 25-year career. No regrets!
What were some of your favorite moments from your career at WWU?
More than moments, what will linger a long, long time are relationships. Students. Colleagues. Amazing educators, librarians, writers, and artists in the community. I’ve loved the everyday “work” of inviting, nudging, supporting, and sharing challenging experiences in the classroom, often ignited by responses to literature. I value the hours we worked side-by-side on big projects: creating WWU’s nationally recognized Children’s/Young Adult Literature Conference, collaborating to host a lively Poetry Camp (for grown ups!), and hosting renowned poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s Arbuthnot Lecture on WWU’s campus. None of that could have happened without dedicated relationships to shared dreams.
What is your secret “super power”? Tell us something that others may not know about you.
I hope to live long enough to see my beloved Seattle Mariners return to the playoffs (will I jinx it all if I also hope for a World Series?). I aim to attend games in all 30 Major League ballparks (so far, I’ve visited 19). And, this summer I’ll return to Cooperstown to see Ed-gaaar inducted into the Hall of Fame. While not a super power (my batting average is well below the Mendoza Line), I do claim to be a super fan.
What stirs joy within you outside of your work?
In addition to family, my life is so much richer because I’ve left home. In terms of joy, this comes from: Unexpected, unplanned, sometimes eye-opening, often jaw-dropping moments when I travel. People stepping in to help when I’m lost or confused (usually due to language mismatch). The kindness, grace, rich laughter, and shared humanity I’ve discovered whenever I step outside the USA. Filling every page in my passport before it expires.
What will be your next adventure?
Travel. Travel. And more travel. Isn’t there an adage, “So many places, so little time”? I want to take full advantage of this one life I have to life. This includes some exciting new ventures that will nourish my learner/teacher soul. I just started a multi-year consulting partnership with English/language arts teachers in the Lynden School District and, in the fall I’ll travel to the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany for a two-month fellowship. More immediately, I’m eager for lazy, sunny days reading on my deck until the sun sets, long walks on Bellingham’s amazing trail system, time with family and friends, and — did I mention? — travel.
Geri Forsberg
Geri Forsberg is fast at work teaching, researching, and writing. This year Geri developed a new approach to teaching technical writing. Students research historical documents that have transformed culture—such documents as the Magna Carta, the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Human Rights, the Equal Pay Act, and many others. Students study what life was like before the document was written, how the document came about, and how life changed after the document was written. They also consider how the document is relevant to their lives today. Students then write magazine articles, an academic research poster, and visual presentations based on their research. Their research posters are presented at the Humanities Research Day at Western. Students have said that their appreciation of history has grown, and their critical thinking skills have developed. Geri is also presenting her research on “Marshall McLuhan and Jacques Ellul in Dialog” at the Media Ecology Association annual conference in Toronto this June.
Greg Youmans
Greg Youmans’s essay “Greener Pastures: Filming Sex and Place at Druid Heights” will appear later this year in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema, edited by Ronald Gregg and Amy Villarejo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). He also served as the film consultant for the Oakland Museum of California’s exhibition Queer California: Untold Stories. The exhibition was on view from April 13 to August 11, and he gave a talk at the museum about the film selections in June. In his teaching, he developed a new course topic for ENG 406: Topics in Critical and Cultural Theory: “Dream/Film,” a course that considers art and experimental film practices in relation to various theories of dreaming and of cinema and of the relationship between the two.
Eren Odabasi
Eren Odabasi has recently published two peer-reviewed book chapters; a study on various audience groups in film festivals included in International Film Festivals (edited by Tricia Jenkins, I.B. Tauris) and an analysis of the commercial success popular Hindi films enjoy at the American box office featured in Pop Culture Matters (edited by Martin Norden and Robert Weir, Cambridge Scholars Publishing). He also has two forthcoming peer-reviewed articles in the journals Post Script and Society and Leisure, exploring the cinematic portrayals of the Jewish community in Buenos Aires and film funds associated with major festivals. In relation to teaching, he has designed new courses on contemporary world cinema with an emphasis on diversifying the canon beyond Western European films (ENG 365), the textual and organizational aspects of international film festivals (ENG 464), and screen portrayals of immigration through different periods in film history (ENG 580).
Ely Shipley
Ely Shipley’s second full-length book Some Animal won the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender Variant Literature, is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry, and has received positive reviews in Publishers Weekly, DIAGRAM, Ocean State Review, and Lambda Literary Review. Publishers Weekly calls it a “riveting exploration of what it means to come of age in a genderqueer body” that is “steeped in Anglo-American poetry and literary theory” and claims that “what sets this book apart is its focused attention to the experience of defying the gender binary, of being in a body that intimates and strangers alike are bent on denying…Shipley’s book is one of hard truths, lovingly rendered.” Some Animal was listed as one of the best poetry collections of 2018 by Entropy, as well as poet CA Conrad. Ely has been having a blast teaching poetry and multigenre workshops, as well as a course on Anne Carson.
Donna Qualley
Donna Qualley’s Afterword, “With and Because of Genevieve,” was published in the online collection, The Rhetoric of Participation, in March of 2019. This collection honors the scholarship of the late Genevieve Critel who was to have begun her career as an Assistant Professor in English (Writing Studies) at Western in the fall of 2012. Donna published a second chapter, “How Digital Writing Sustains Reading” in a the edited collection, Digital reading and Writing in Composition Studies, also published in 2019 by Routledge.
Bruce Goebel
Bruce Goebel’s article, “What’s So Funny about Social Justice?” was published in English Journal. The article focuses specifically on breaking down stereotypes of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent and is a direct response to anti-Muslim rhetoric of the Trump administration. Over the past year, he’s collaborated with Jennifer Green and Beth Dillard from the ELL program in creating an English major with a combined ELL/Bilingual Education emphasis. Currently there is no ELL “major” which means the ELL program is an “add on” that takes an additional year. This major is designed to allow a student interested in being an ELL teacher to complete GURs, the English major, and the Secondary Education program in four years rather than five. It should also make ELL and Bilingual Education more visible at Western.
Kami Westhoff
Kami Westhoff’s Your Body a Bullet, a collaborative book with alumna Elizabeth Vignali, was published by Unsolicited Press in November 2018. She presented “Immensities” at the PMLA conference, a poetry project that seeks to honor women who’ve been murdered in Whatcom County. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction appeared in various journals including SWIMM, Ghost City, Stirring, Hippocampus, Threadcount, Permafrost, A-Minor, and Contrary, received six Best of the Net nominations and two Pushcart Prize nominations, and will be included in three anthologies: Mansion, by Ghost City Press, and Ways of Looking, by Carve, and the Running Wild Novella Anthology, by Running Wild Press.