accomplishments

English/Writing Program

Accomplishments

Students/Alumni

Juli Bloodgood directed The Wizard of Oz at the Elgin Opera House.

Jamie Mueller, 2009 Editor of Oregon East, won first place in The Nature of Words 2009 Rising Star competition in Bend for her story "Audacity," written in one of Jodi Varon's creative writing classes. Jamie is the second of Jodi's students to win a first-pace award in this competition.

Dodie McDaniel has so far earned nearly $10,000 from three small grants on behalf of Wallowa libraries and Wallowa High School. Juli Bloodgood landed a $5,000 grant from the Kinsman Foundation to support handicapped access in the Elgin Opera House renovations. Community member Deborah Hoffnagle won a grant to support the La Grande Community Garden, and Dawn Schiller earned a grant to support programs Shelter from the Storm programs raising awareness about the struggles of “throwaway” teens.

Alum Karen Spears Zacharias's fourth book Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide? is coming out in 2010.

2007 alum Amanda Reed received the Rising Star Award in Literary Nonfiction from The Nature of Words in Bend, OR, for her essay "Moving in Relation to Time," written in Jodi Varon's WR 316 Advanced Prose Writing.

Kathleen Cathey took a position in Senator Ron Wyden's La Grande office.

Shelby Zacharias completed her master's at James Mason.

Colleen McLeod and Shawn Snyder, Sandra Ellston's students, published creative non-fiction in The Resource Roundup and the Nonce Journal, respectively.

The following students presented at the Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature, 2007, University of Portland, in session titled “The Ruses of Enchantment: Fairy Tales and Their Subversions”:

“Little Red—Who?” by Victoria Wendt,
“’Beauty and the Beast’: A multi Faced Tale of Transformations: by Shantra Hannibal, and
“Animal Passion: Female Social and Sexual Liberation in 'The Tiger Bride'” by Holly Arnson.

In 2006, The Voice, edited by Leslie Mitts, won the following awards in the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association Collegiate Newspaper Contest: Best Special Section, Best Feature Story "Soldiers Welcomed Home in La Grande" by Reilly Cosgrove, Best Review "'Capote' Sheds Light on Author's Dark Side" by Sara Sawatzki, Best Columnist "Say-WHAT-ski" by Sara Sawatzki, Best Spot News Photo "Jim Fenwick (football coach fired)" by Savino Cisneros and "Yoga" by Saundra Ponte, Best Graphic "MySpace" by Kevin Berryman, and Best House Ad "Think You Can Do Better?" by Kevin Berryman.

Carrien Meek wrote a successful grant resulting from LS 401 Capstone, Summer 2006, for Fruitland Community Library ($1500) to purchase Caldecott- and Newberry-award-winning books.

Rajani Lata published an article in the La Grande Observer "EOU Sets Signts on Greater Diversity."

Joann Williams landed a copy editor job for the Sequim Gazette in Washington. Landon Johnston, former Voice Sports Editor, took a position with Mountain Home News in Idaho.

Dave McDermott took a position teaching ESL in Anchorage, Alaska.

Sara Thompson entered the master's program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Donna Evans entered the MA in Composition and Rhetoric program at Washington State University.

Caleb Walser, an English major serving in the Honor Guard, was nominated for a poetry award. He was named an "International Poet of Merit" for 2002 by Poetry.com, and was a finalist for the "Poet of the Year" award. Poetry.com hosted a symposium in Washington, D.C. on the 23rd of August where all merit award winners will read their poems to those gathered and receive statues commemorating their awards.

Becky Hawkins, an EOU Liberal Studies alum minoring in English and Health, received a volunteer award from the Bureau of Land Management for her WR 320: Technical Writing project. As part of WR 320, Becky volunteered to write an interactive fire safety presentation for the BLM's Fire Prevention program. The presentation was made to nearly 700 second-grade students in Malheur and Baker Counties.

Jesse Dwyer, an English/Writing major, attended Harvard's summer program.

Frank Kaminski, an English/Writing major who graduated in June 2002 and noted local film critic, completed his master's degree at the Graduate School in Journalism at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.

Two students in English/Writing had papers accepted to a national student conference. Neva Sanders, a student in Dr. Sandra Ellston's theory course, presented her paper on Ionesco's play Rhinoceros at the National Undergraduate English Conference at Weber State University in Ogden, UT in April of 2002. Geri Hopkins also attended the conference to present her paper on Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece, a paper written in Dr. Marilyn Ewing's advanced Shakespeare course.

Faculty

Axelrod, David. The Cartographer’s Melancholy. Eastern Washington UP, 2005. Finalist for the 2006 Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry presented by the Oregon Book Awards.

Brewster, Cori. “Trading on the Exploited: Fanny Fern and the Marketplace Rhetoric of Social Justice.” Popular Nineteenth-Century Women Writers and the Literary Marketplace. Eds. Earl Yarington and Mary DeJong. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007.

Ellston, Sandra. “Heritage Tree.” (poem) The Oregonian. 14 Jan. 2007 and "Hearing Ophelia: Gender and Tragic Discourse in Hamlet," Renaissance & Reformation, n.s. 14 (Feb. 1990): 1-10. Consistently reprinted in The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, ed. Michael Meyer and The Bedford Introduction to Literature, ed. Michael Meyer, most recently in the 8th edition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008) as "Ophelia's Mad Speeches."

Gustafson, Neil. “Willa Cather and Hamlin Garland: Early Parallel Lives.” Willa Cather Newsletter and Review. Summer 2005.

Knowles, Nancy. "Active Pacifism in a World at War: The Legacy of Virginia Woolf's Pacifist Theory on Narrative Structure." Woolf, Women, and War: Contemporary Discussions on Gender and Virginia Woolf's War Writing. Ed. Jane Wood. Forthcoming 2009 from Mellon Press.

Shadle, Mark F. Teaching Multiwriting: Researching and Composing with Multiple Genres, Media, Disciplines, and Cultures. With Robert L. Davis. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2007.