English Professor at Robert Morris University Illinois
Greater Chicago Area
English Professor at Robert Morris University Illinois
Greater Chicago Area
Current Endeavors
"Harmonics of Trees"--new videopoem screening at "Visible Verse" film festival in Vancouver, BC on November 19th, 2009.
"The Birthmark: Finding my Real Family" appearing in anthology "Pieces of Me" (EMK Press, 2009).
Recent video poems screened at The Rec Room's "Collaboration Show" curated by Nina Corwin in Chicago on October 14th, 2009.
"Disco Valentine" performed at New Town Writers Short Plays Series at Strawdog Theatre in Chicago on October 13th and 14th, 2009.
Biographical citation in Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature (Greenwood Press, 2009 ) edited by Emmanuel Nelson
New poem, "Sojourn" currently online at "qarrtsiluni" lit journal.
Short film with Mary Russell, "The Book of Green," screened at the Athens Art Video Festival in Greece on May 14th, 2009.
Paper on Ernesto Grassi appearing online at the University of Valencia.
"Finding Me: A Bedtime Story" --Essay on growing up adopted in the newly released anthology, "A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families" (Adams Media, 2009).
Featured poet with Chicago-based authors Gregg Shapiro and Nina Corwin at the "Center on Halsted" in Chicago on April 30th, 2009 in honor of the anthology, "Poetic Voices Without Borders, Volume 2" edited by Robert Giron (Gival Press, 2009).
Featured panelist with Kathie Bergquist, Karen Lee Osborne, Anne Laughlin, and Samuel Park at the AWP 2009 Conference in Chicago Illinois, February 13th, 2009. "Windy City Queer: Writing Out from the Midwest" panel featured an examination of regional writing in Chicago and the Midwest. Delivered a portion of my memoir-in-progress on growing up in a closed adoption in rural Illinois.
Conducted a six-week Spring 2009 word and image workshop with artist Mary Russell and select RMU Institute of Art and Design students to create "The Tea Leaf Retreat" and "Green Eye Journal" through the Cultural Enrichment Program.
Creative Writing, Poetry, Rhetoric, Composition, Speech, Humanities, Global Literatures
(Higher Education industry)
April 1994 — Present (15 years 8 months)
Current full-time, multi-campus teaching load includes lit-based, writing and humanities courses and oral and written communication classes throughout the academic year in the RMU Division of Sciences and Humanities.
Senior Faculty Member and Curriculum Designer for the "Freshman Experience."
Writing consultant for the LoPata Writing Center.
Faculty Mentor for incoming student-teacher interns from the DePaul University Writing Program.
Co-coordinator of the DuPage Campus RMU Honors Program including teaching courses, hosting student activities and "Leadership in Action" seminars.
Eagle Newspaper Faculty Coordinator for the DuPage Campus.
Assessment Committee Developer for curriculum guidelines and assessment techniques for select Division of Sciences and Humanities courses (including the Honors English and Speech Core, and upper-level humanities).
Coordinator of the Cultural Enrichment Program and active contributing member of the Institutional Academic Council.
Master of Arts , Writing and Rhetoric , 1999 — 2000
Bachelor of Arts , English
Master of Arts , Communication Theory
Travel, Literature, Culture, Cinema, Music
The Society of Midland Authors
Eric Hoffer Book Award 2008
"Notable" Distinction for book, "Postcards from Heartthrob Town" (Harrington Park Press, 2007) in the category of "Memoir."
Potenza 2005 Film Festival: Short Films and Other Stories Video Poetry Award 2005; First Place for the videopoem, "Dance of the Electric Moccasins": Selected from nearly 1000 international entries, awarded the monetary prize of $2,000 Euro.
Illinois Arts Council Finalist Fellowship Award in Poetry 2003
Gival Press Poetry Award for "Dervish" (Gival Press, 2001)