Message from the Chair

Greetings, Alumni & Friends.
It is a great pleasure to present English Matters, the new newsletter of your Department of English at WSU.

Since my term as department chair began on January 2, I’ve enjoyed working in a new capacity with a stellar group of faculty, staff, and students. Thanks to each of them—and thanks to your support—we have accomplished so much!

Our recent successes include sending student interns of our literary journal Blood Orange Review to the Associated Writers Program in Portland, Oregon, for extra-curricular training. BOR also held its first literary contest and welcomed many terrific entries. In addition, the department hosted a wide range of visiting writers on campus, including Crystal Wilkinson, Mita Mahato, Kaveh Akbar, and Rachel Morgan. And we released another exemplary issue of the undergraduate literary journal LandEscapes.

With the help of student intern and Outstanding Senior in English, Miranda Sherrell; faculty members, Tomie Gowdy-Burke, Liz Siler, and Laura Powers; and the College of Arts and Sciences communications team, we have put together this newsletter, which we hope to send to you at least once a year. This issue features the achievements of several faculty and staff members, including Will Hamlin, Linda Russo, Aaron Oforlea, Leisa McCormick, and Anna Plemons, along with news of Diane Gillespie’s professor emerita award and tributes to late professors Virginia Hyde and Boyd Benson, founder of LandEscapes. Also inside, you’ll find news about graduate student achievement, our new Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and other events and activities.

We would love to hear about you, too—your accomplishments, your ventures in reading and writing, and the ways in which you have used your English studies. If time permits, please complete our brief survey, and, if you like, we’ll share your stories in future issues of English Matters.

Sincerely,
Donna Potts