SewaneeLetters.com

Current home: Chattanooga, TN
Age: 28
Program: MA with a dash of F
Year in the program: 3.5

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
After graduating from Sewanee as an undergrad, I went to Houston, TX, where I taught high school English for four years. There, I met my wife Ashley, and we moved to Chattanooga. We are currently living on campus as dorm parents at the McCallie School, where I teach sophomore and junior English and coach crew. Living and teaching at an all-male school is…well…interesting.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
I had wanted to start my graduate work for some time, and when the program began at Sewanee, the thought of being able to spend my summers on The Mountain was too much to ignore. No better place to be.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
Currently, I pretty much read and grade papers, though I have plans to write something new and revise something old over the upcoming Christmas vacation. I am still questing for the perfect way to describe a Thickburger in words.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Tough question. I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed all of them for different reasons, but John Sullivan’s “Creative Nonfiction” class really pushed me in a direction I’d never previously gone. I look forward to further exploring creative writing in future summers.

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Anything involving Larry Brown.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
1)    Stay away from Jimmy.
2)    Visit Shenanigan’s at least once a day.
3)    Meet my dog.
4)    Listen to Townes Van Zandt and/or Steve Earle with John Grammer and beer.
5)    See #1
6)    Find my anthology and return it to me.

What are you reading these days?
In the spirit of the election, I decided to read Obama’s first book, so I’m currently working on that, but mostly I read and re-read whatever I’m teaching, which at the moment would be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hemingway’s short fiction.

Current home: West Palm Beach, FL
Age: 27
Program: MA
Year in the program: finished second year

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
I graduated with my BS in Secondary Education Language Arts and a minor in Studio Art from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). Prior to college, I attended boarding school at the Culver Academies; a huge influence on my love of literature thanks to Dr. Richard Davies and Candy Koehn. These two remarkable teachers served as my muses to become a teacher myself. Currently, I find myself living in sunny South Florida with my beautiful wife Cortney teaching ninth and tenth grade English at Cardinal Newman High School. On top of teaching, I am a Department Co-Chair and Boys Head Lacrosse Coach.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
I have always had the goal of continuing my education, but I failed to find the time once I found myself in the “real world.” With teaching and coaching during the year, SOL is the perfect program.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I am heavily involved in trying to keep pace with my students in all of the reading I assign them.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Toss up… Bible as Lit or Spencer.

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Anything with the legendary Angus Fletcher, maybe something on Dante’s Inferno or William Blake.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
Bring your drinking shoes and a set of bocce…kidding. DO NOT plan anything the week after classes end (i.e. getting married or taking twenty-five students to lacrosse camp thirty hours from home).

What are you reading these days?
Bear’s Boys by Eli Gold (what?! It’s football season) and Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory.