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Melanie Diaz, current English major and Technical & Professional Writing minor shares a glimpse of her summer 2024 internship experience. “This past summer, I was honored to work as a Public Relations intern at the corporate office of Rack Room Shoes. Throughout my internship, I supported the brand communications team by implementing Rack Room Shoes’ […]

Congratulations to Prof. Mark West on being named a finalist for this year’s Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence! This is the second time that Dr. West has been selected as a finalist for this prestigious award. A nomination for this award is one of this university’s highest honors. It speaks to Mark’s excellence in […]

Lauryn Massenburg is a writer, director, producer, and recent MFA screenwriting graduate of UNC School of the Arts. Her screenplay, Puddin’, is the 2024 recipient of the Grand Jury Award for Best Screenplay at Beyond: The Cary Film Festival. Lauryn wrote her English Honors thesis, “White Anxiety Versus Minority Reality: The Films of Wes Anderson,” spring of […]

L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and many other novels set in Oz, often referred to himself as the Royal Historian of Oz.  Well, I consider myself to be the Royal Historian of CharlOz, the upcoming Oz-themed literary and arts festival that will take place in Charlotte from September 26 through September 29.  The […]

Dr. Olivia Rines has been appointed to the position of Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs at Harford Community College, in Bel Air, Maryland. Dr. Rines completed her B.A. (2012) and M.A. (2015, Concentration in Applied Linguistics) degrees in the English Department before completing a Ph.D. (2021) at Arizona State University. Prior to this most […]

Professor Meghan Barnes’ new book Teaching for Equity, Justice, and Antiracism with Digital Literacy Practices: Knowledge, Tools, and Strategies for the ELA Classroom, co-edited with Rick Marlatt (New Mexico State University), has just been published by Routledge. This volume demonstrates how English Language Arts (ELA) teachers can use digital tools “in the service of antiracist […]

Professor JuliAnna Ávila’s has just published a new book titled Fine Horses and Fair-Minded Riders: Modern Vaquero Horsemanship (Purdue University Press). This book documents what she has learned from contemporary practitioners of Vaquero horsemanship to explore a range of topics. These topics include self-directed learning journeys, the flexibility of apprentice and expert positions, the influence […]

Professor Mark West’s book Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature: Stories from the In Between was recently published by Rowman & Littlefield. The edited collection brings together fifteen original essays from various scholars that explore the role of liminal spaces in children’s and young adult literature. One contributor is Professor Paula T. Connolly, […]

Brittany Olson (B.A. 2021, with Honors) recently learned that she has been named the 2024 GoodLit Poetry Fellow. CharlotteLit announced that the fellowship “provides an emerging poet with a full year of opportunities that broaden their knowledge of craft, expand their platform within the city, further their experience with workshop facilitation, assist them in navigating […]

Dr. Pilar Blitvich, an expert in pragmatics and (im)politeness research, has just published Pragmatics, (Im)politeness, and Intergroup Communication: A Multilayered Discursive Analysis of Cancel Culture with Cambridge University Press. This book adopts in-depth, qualitative discursive analysis to explore the processes involved in creating Cancel Culture, both online and offline. Blitvich describes these processes as “degradation […]