Our alumni continue to succeed after finishing our program. They can be found at the top PhD and MFA programs around the country, teaching at community colleges, working in the business and non-profit sectors, and teaching in secondary schools. Here are short bios from a few of our alumni.

• Sheldon Lawrence graduated from Literature and Writing in 2004. He wrote a creative thesis and is currently teaching in the English department at BYU-Idaho where he also trains and supervises writing tutors. Sheldon is near to completing his Doctor of Arts degree at Idaho State University.

• Darren C. Perkes graduated from Utah State in 1998 with a BA in English teaching and French. He started at Box Elder Middle School in Brigham City, Utah. In 1999, still living in Logan, Utah, he moved to Sky View High School in Smithfield, Utah, to teach concurrent enrollment English 1010 and English 2200. Wanting to diversify his degrees to make himself more profitable in the future, he pursued an MA in Literature &Writing, which he completed in 2003. He still teaches full-time at Sky View High School teaching concurrent enrollment classes and a Utah Basic Skills Competency Test class for struggling seniors.

• Melinda White graduated in May of 2007. She is currently a PhD student in the Media, Art, and Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her focus is on new media literature, with interests in postmodern print literature, hypertext, and string theory.

• In May of 2007, Samantha Robinson finished her degree. She wrote a creative nonfiction thesis. After graduation, she began her third year teaching American Literature, Introduction to Writing, and Readers Workshop (a course for sophomores who are dramatically behind in reading ability) at Mountain Crest High School in Cache Valley.

• Sarah Stoeckl began her PhD at the University of Oregon in the fall of 2007. She is studying 20th century American prose with a focus on modernism.

• Michelle Parkinson received her MA in 2000 and wrote her thesis on Shakespeare. She earned a PhD from Purdue in 2005 and is now Assistant Professor of English at University of Wisconsin - River Falls where she is working on a book-length study of early modern culture.

• Shanan Ballam received her Masters in 2000 and shortly thereafter became a lecturer on Utah State's English faculty. In addition to teaching writing courses, she has served as the Co-Director of the English 2010 program. In 2007 Shanan earned her MFA in Poetry Writing from the University of Nebraska's Low-Residency program.

• Having graduated in 2006, Kelli Towers spent two years teaching humanities at Salt Lake Community College and composition at Westminster College. In the fall of 2008, she will begin a PhD program in literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder where she will be focusing on nineteenth-century British literature and cultural studies.

• Melissa Bowles is completing her first year at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. She works at the university library in the reference department and spends time both at the reference desk and working to create online instructional materials for the library.