Kelli Russell Agodon's (B.A. ‘92) book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Rooom (2010) was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and was chosen for ForeWord magazine's Book of the Year in Poetry.
Tom Baisch (B.A. ’00) graduated from the UW Law School in 2004.
Jennifer (Jenni) Larson Baldwin (B.A. ’04) has earned two masters degrees, one in English literature and one in education at WWU. She has been teaching middle school English in California ever since. She was recently made the English Language Arts Curriculum Coordinator at her school.
Peg Cadigan (B.A. ’82) earned her M.Ed. in 2003 from Concordia University. She is the Coordinator of the Great Lakes Earth Institute, www.glei.org, a founder of Radical Education for Community Action and Local Liberation (RECALL) at Candlelight Collective, and a Certified Permaculture Designer. She tutors at the Literacy Center and is beginning a Transition Town Initiative in West Bend, WI. She lives on a 65-acre farm with six geese, one dog, three cats, two horses, five French Maran chickens, and one loud rooster.
Novella Carpenter (B.A. English, B.S. Biology ’97) has a farm on a dead-end street in the ghetto of Oakland, CA. On GhostTown Farm, she has raised vegetables, chickens, rabbits, ducks, goats, turkeys, pigs, and bees. Her work has appeared in salon.com, sfgate.com, and Food and Wine magazine. She is also a member of the Biofuel Oasis Cooperative, a biodiesel station and urban farming feed store in Berkeley, CA. Her third book, The Essential Urban Farmer (Penguin Group, 2011), is a how-to urban farm manual, written with Willow Rosenthal of City Slicker Farms. She keeps a blog about happen-ings on GhostTown Farm at www. novellacarpenter.com
Meredith Cole (B.A. ’99, M.F.A. ’04, M.I.T. ’07) won the 2011 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. Her book, Miniatures, will be published by Marsh Hawk in 2012.
Gwendolyn Geer Field’s (B.A. ’70) novel The Butterfly’s Kingdom has just been released by Club Lighthouse Publishing. She has worked in public relations for radio stations and concert promoters, in human resources for Levi Strauss & Company, and at the Pacific Stock Exchange.
Tammy Greenwood (M.F.A. ’96) has published six novels, including Two Rivers, The Hungry Season, and This Glittering World. Her seventh novel, Grace, will be published in April 2012. She has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She currently lives in San Diego, CA, with her husband and two daughters. She teaches for UCSD’s Extension Program and San Diego Writers, Ink. She is also a photographer, with a solo exhibition of her work at The Ink Spot Gallery in San Diego, www.tgreenwood.com.
Launa Hall (B.A ’91) went on to earn an M.F.A. in creative writing in fiction from Purdue University in 2000, and an M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education from George Mason University in 2010. She has taught reading to adult literacy students, creative writing, first-year composition, parenting skills to inner city parenting teens, and music lessons to children. Now she is an elementary school teacher in Arlington, VA, just outside of Washington, DC, where she lives with her husband and two children.
Lois v. Harris (B.A. ’86) published her third children’s book, Maxfield Parrish: Painter of Magical Make-Believe (Pelican, 2011). Her second book, Charlie Russell: Tale-Telling Cowboy Artist (Pelican, 2010), was a finalist for the 2011 Western Writers of America Spur Storyteller Award, and a 2011 Parents’ Choice Recommended Award winner.
Sally Hewitt (B.A. ’69) put her art career on hold in 2000 when she took over as Managing Editor of Whatcom Watch, an environmental newspaper in Bellingham. She retired from the paper recently to concentrate on her artwork once again. Her paintings are displayed at Lakeshore Gallery in Kirkland and online at www. sallyhewitt.com.
Jennifer May Kanter (B.A. English & Political Science ’98) is currently the Director of Distribution for AMC Networks in Santa Monica, CA, and gave birth to her first daughter, Alessandra, on September 1, 2009.
Jill Lynn Lazo (B.A. ’05) received another promotion as a civilian Marine Inspector for the Coast Guard.
Margaret (Meg) Lemke (B.A. English, B.S. Psychology ’01) and spouse Brett Camper (B.A. CHID ’02) announced the birth of Lola Bennett Camper-Lemke on April 20, 2011.
Floyd Loomis (B.A ’73) went on to study at Berkeley College, Yale. Loomis recalls his fondest memories at the UW were of sitting in classes with Angelo Pellegrini, Markham Harris, and Jacob Korg. His book As Long As Life, The Memoirs of a Frontier Woman Doctor was published by Storm Peak Press/ Random House in 1995. Loomis and his wife left the Seattle area in 2005 and settled in Boise. He has continued to write and now has a number of titles available on line with Lulu.com. Recent novel titles include: Frankie Ravan, No End in Sight, and Blue Duwamish. Loomis has one nonfiction book, Ladies with Sisu, the brief history of a central Idaho Lutheran women’s philanthropy organization.
Benjamin Lukoff’s (B.A. ’97) first book, Seattle Then and Now, was published by Thunder Bay Press in fall 2010.
Laura Elizabeth Martin (MATESOL ’11) was awarded a one-year teaching contract in UW’s International and English Language Programs. She is very happy to still be a part of the UW after graduation.
Monica Mello (B.A. ’10) is a 2011 Teach for America Los Angeles corps member teaching 10th-grade English in Watts, CA.
Albert Merati (B.A. ’87) returned to the UW as a faculty member 16 years after leaving. After earning a BA with honors in English in 1987, Amerati graduated with honors from the UW School of Medicine in 1991, then went to UCSD for a 6-year training in Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery. This was followed by a one-year fellowship in Laryngology and Care of the Professional Voice at the world-renowned Vanderbilt Voice Center. He was on the faculty at Kansas University from 1998-2001, then the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee for 6 years. In 2007, Amerati returned to UW as an Associate Professor and Chief of Laryngology; he was promoted to Professor in July 2011. Amerati recalls “great memories of my time in the English Department— lots of memorable characters like LaGuardia (Milton), Kolpacoff (short story writing), Wagoner (playwriting), Johnson (short story writing), Mussetter, Abrams, the list goes on. . . .”
Hediyeh Mohajerjasbi (B.A. English & Sociology ’10) served abroad in Panama for 6 months and is currently at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, CA.
Alec Moorman, M.D. (B.A. ’00) is a Cardiology Fellow at the University of Washington.
Kathleen O’Dell (B.A. ‘82) published her sixth children’s novel, The Aviary (Knopf, 2011), a turn-of-the-century mystery with elements of fantasy.
Rebecca Peterson (B.A. ’02, M.I.T. ’05). After teaching in the public schools for two years (8th grade, then 9th & 12th), she started teaching elementary grades at a small private school, then got a second endorsement to teach at the elementary level (K-5). Currently she teaches 4th and 5th graders at The Perkins School, a small private school in the Maple Leaf neighborhood. She loves her job!
Tiffany (Vajda) Phelps (B.A. ’94) recently started a new job with HEC Foundation as their Associate Director of Development for North America. She works on the HEC Paris campus, just a few kilometers from Versailles. She and her husband Corey have lived in Paris for over two years with their two West Highland White Terriers. She continues to take writing classes at Shakespeare & Co. on the Left Bank and is training for the Barcelona Marathon in May.
Jonathan Potter (M.A. ’90) published a collection of poetry, House of Words (Korrektiv P, 2010). A poem from the collection was featured on the February 28, 2011 broadcast of Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.
Dena M. Rosko (B.A. English & Communication ’01) graduated with an M.A. in Communication and Leadership Studies from Gonzaga University in 2010. She researches narrative health, international education, community journalism, and writing; she consults with individuals and organizations on communication, leadership, social media, writing, and photography. She volunteers such services to community organizations interested in developing health, education, and the public com-mons. She resides in Renton, WA, with her husband James who is also a UW alumni (B.S. Physics ’01) http://www. denarosko.com.
Sharma Shields (B.A. ‘00) completed her M.F.A. at the University of Montana in 2004. Her short story collection, Favorite Monster, just won the Autumn House Fiction Contest. It was selected by author Stewart O’Nan from over 500 submissions. Autumn House Press will publish the collection in 2012. Stories from the collection have appeared in such journals as the Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and Sonora Review. The collection was completed in part due to a grant from Artist Trust.
Kristen Ann Spangler (B.A. English & Scandinavian/Norwegian ’00). After too many long years away from the Pacific Northwest, she happily accepted a post teaching middle school English at the Harbor School on Vashon Island.
Richard Wakefield (B.A. ’78, Ph.D. ’83) had his second book of poetry, A Vertical Mile, accepted for publication by Able Muse Press.
Roni Weiss (B.A. English & Drama ’02) just started a social media consulting company, RW Social. She’s also a Media Partner with Africa Travel Association. She helps run Travel Talk on Twitter, the biggest travel Twitter chat
Kaitlyn Williams (B.A.’11) began working at the Costco Wholesale home office as a technical writer and analyst in the Accounting Documentation Team. She led her first group project in September with great results. She recently bought her first home in Maple Valley.
Peter Williams (B.A. English Honors & Law, Societies and Justice ’11) has been admitted to the London School of Economics where he will be working on a M.Sc. in Philosophy and Public Policy.
Linda Marie Zaer (Ph.D. ’86), Professor of English, specializing in the interdisciplinary study of medieval romance at Boise State University, has recently had her book Performance and the Middle English Romance accepted for publication at Cambridge University Press.
