Jai Dulani’s (MFA ,’20) poem “My Name” was selected for Best New Poets 2020. His essay “HIST 525: The Sine Curve Gets Really Low” recently appeared in The Offing.
Justin Lewis
Justin Lewis’ co-edited volume, Literacy and Pedagogy in an Age of Misinformation and Disinformation was recently published as part of the Working and Writing for Change series at Parlor. The volume is open-access and may be found at https://parlorpress.com/collections/working-and-writing-for-change/products/literacy-and-pedagogy-in-an-age-of-misinformation-and-disinformation
Justin is currently an Editorial Fellow for the CCCC Series in Writing and Rhetoric of NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/swr). He is also working to build a partnership between SWR and other academic presses to create an open-access option for publishing monographs in Writing/Rhetoric. He notes that his background as a co-editor for an open-access journal (http://licsjournal.org) and his own research and scholarship in digital intellectual property have prepared him for this role. Justin can be reached at lewisj42@wwu.edu
(BA, 2018): Jake Dardzinski
(BA, 2018) Jake Dardzinski is a junior writer for Pixelberry Studios, creator of story driven games, including Surviving High School and Cause of Death. Previously, he worked for Luminary Games as a Narrative Designer.
(BA 1999 from WWU, MFA 2001 from EWU): Wendy J. Fox
Wendy J. Fox is a book review editor for Buzzfeed and a contributor to Ms. Magazine, Electric Literature, the Rumpus, and Business Insider, among others. In 2015, her collection The Seven Stages of Anger received the Press 53 Award, and in 2020, she was a finalist in literary fiction for If the Ice Had Held from the Colorado Book Awards.
(MA, 2007): Kate Christie (Jennifer Vanderweyden)
(MA, 2007) Kate Christie (Jennifer Vanderweyden) is the author of Gay Pride & Prejudice, Beautiful Game, and Leaving LA, published by Bella Books. She is the author of 15 titles and now writes full-time under her own imprint, Second Growth Books.
Ning Yu
Ning Yu’s book on a critical genre which criticizes poems in the form of poetry was published 09/2020 by Beijing Normal University Press. It is a critical evaluation of a modern poet’s poems written to criticizes 25 poets in Chinese literary history, somewhat like a combination of Alexader Pope’s “Essay On Criticism” and Samuel Johnson’s “Lives of the English Poets.” It is a commissioned book. The title, roughly translated, is Interpretation and Remembrance: An Analysis of Professor Chigong’s 25 Critical Poems
(BA, 2019): Peter Hedlund
In the past couple years Peter Hedlund (BA, 2019) has moved to Seattle, where he got his first 1-bedroom apartment and got a good job as an accountant. He also joined the Democratic Socialists of America and marched in the Black Lives Matter protests. He has enjoyed going on many hikes. He casually dated an incredible woman for three weeks that had a big impact on him. Unfortunately, he was fired from his job as an accountant after 15 months but got a new job at a grocery co/op last week. He read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, started therapy, adopted a cat named Quill, drank coffee, got hit by tear gas, bought In a Silent Way by Miles Davis on wax, and played chess with his dad a lot. He has gotten vaccinated and decided he would like to be an educator. He is looking forward to the rest of his twenties.
(BA, 1992): Craig MacKenzie
After leaving the Northwest in 2001 to raise their boys in Southern Rhode Island, Craig MacKenzie (BA, 1992) will be the new principal at Cashmere High School beginning July 1st. He and his wife Paige are excited to reconnect to their West Coast home.
(BA, 1980): Dion Lissner O’Reilly
Dian Lissner (BA, 1980) aka Dion O’Reilly published a book of poetry in February of 2020, Ghost Dogs, which was the winner of the Independent Press award for poetry, the Dragonfly award for poetry, the Pinnacle Achievement Award for Poetry, an Honorable Mention in the Eric Hoffer Award, and took third place in the Royal Dragonfly Book Award.
(BA, 2019): Leslie Cogley
Right after graduating in June 2019, Leslie Cogley (BA, 2019) got a job as the sole Grant Writer for an anti-human trafficking nonprofit in Seattle, WA, called REST: Real Escape from the Sex Trade. She is thankful to her mentors and Professors in the English department, including Jeremy Cushman, Tony Prichard, and Donna Qualley.