Shay Williams
Shay hails from multiple countries like Portugal and Poland, but spent most of her childhood and teens in the UK. She loves Shakespeare, tattoos, writing, and serving her overlord, Zelda (cat). She studied performing arts at The Stella Adler Studio in NYU, years later became a shrink (BA and MA in clinical psychology) and has just completed her MFA in creative writing. She's a professional writer, editor, teacher and a human encyclopedia of movies and TV. To win her heart, just give her pasta bolognese and a good horror movie.
Marissa Gamache
Marissa is a second-year graduate student in the English: Language and Linguistics program. In 2020, she received her BA in Linguistics from Wheaton College in Norton, MA. She tutored college writing for three years before transitioning to writing ESL curriculum. Her main interests include Old English and Old Norse, translation theory and the conveyance of meaning across time and cultures, and how the brain processes sound. Marissa also studies music theory and arranges for various instruments.
Nusrat Zaman
Nusrat, an international student from Bangladesh, is a second-year graduate student in the English: Language and Linguistics program. She attended the University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Linguistics and Literature in 2022. She discovered her passion for linguistics during a captivating phonetics course that illuminated the intricacies of language. Eager to delve deeper, Nusrat pursued additional coursework, driven by a fascination with the psychology of language. She centers her curiosity on bilingualism, intrigued by how the bilingual brain diverges from monolingual cognition and captivated by language acquisition processes.
She has served as an instructor, senior lecturer, and TA in Bangladesh, honing her skills in teaching English to second-language learners. This hands-on experience has enriched her understanding of language dynamics and reinforced her commitment to exploring the nuances of linguistics.
Autumn was raised in the Berkshires, MA, and graduated cum laude from Emmanuel College in 2022 with a degree in writing, editing and publishing. She has had nonfiction pieces published in The Medical Literary Messenger and Oyster River Pages and currently works as editorial assistant and writer for Art New England magazine. She takes an multi-disciplinary approach to writing fiction, often incorporating visual art and historical research into her process. When she is not writing, making art, or spending way too much on fancy coffee drinks, she can usually be found at home with her pet rabbit, Lavender.
Dani Mueller is a writer and massage therapist who recently moved to New Hampshire from a small town in northern Michigan. He likes looking for cool rocks, finding quiet places, and seeing what’s around the bend. Nothing satisfies him quite like writing, when the words catch the light of meaning in just the right way.
Samhita Chitturi
Samhita Chitturi / Samhi C. is a Telugu-American writer from Woodbridge/Edison/Iselin, New Jersey and a first-year grad student in UNH's M.F.A. writing program. She recently graduated from Penn State Behrend's undergraduate creative writing program with a minor in criminology.
She spends 25% of her waking hours taking classes, working as a tutor, writing, and building other creative projects; another 25% watching TV and films, listening to music, and reading; and 40% of her time daydreaming and contemplating life. 10% is devoted to everything else including spending time with family and friends, taking long walks, trying new food, and doing yoga.
As of now, her ultimate goal is to become a professor and eventually open up her own BookCafe somewhere in the northeast with a tutoring center that offers both free and paid programs for K-12 and undergrad students as well as offers both a free lending library and a bookstore with books for sale.
You can find all her digitally available works at linktr.ee/SamhiC., including her latest novel "New York to Seattle & Back Again", a contemporary romance that stemmed from her undergraduate senior thesis, as well as its soundtrack album "Mujhe Yaad Hai".
Also check out her blog MidnightMochaLatte.wordpress.com and her writer's Instagram @SamhiC8LovesToWrite .
Em Platt-Schultz
Em Platt-Schultz is currently writing a Western, because they didn't get enough challenge with sci-fi or fantasy, evidently. Have they interacted with a cow, horse, or livestock animal since they were a child? No, they have not. They are writing about it, though. They are also a big fan of bird watching, and recently saw a Cooper's Hawk while pet sitting in California. Em is a long time (since birth) resident of New Hampshire, hailing from the town of Sunapee. They took a four year break from NH to go to UMaine Farmington, fell in love with Maine, but were drawn back to the dark side by some kind of loyalty to New Hampshire--God knows where that came from. Their favorite book store in NH is Violet's Book Exchange in Claremont (and this was not an easy decision to make). If you need a book recommendation, do not ask them. They will immediately forget that they have ever read anything, ever.
Gavin Pritchard
Gavin Pritchard was a published author and journalist before graduating with a B.A. in writing at Ithaca College. After graduating, he worked as a substitute teacher, an indie book tagline writer, and even a land surveyor to afford his robust fantasy book collection.
Gavin loves all forms of artistic expression, but he especially enjoys fiction featuring the weird and fantastical. When he isn’t writing, Gavin will often be seen skiing down black diamond hills and falling face first at the bottom.
Malek Allari
Malek Allari, born in Jordan and raised in Saudi Arabia, graduated with a BA in English and a BA in Philosophy from Eastern Connecticut State University. He was editor-in-chief of the Eastern newspaper, The Campus Lantern, for two years and one semester as the editor-in-chief of a literary journal, Eastern Exposure, which also originated at Eastern Connecticut State University. Mostly writing fiction, Malek also composes poetry. He has two novel drafts, “Bloodletter” and “The Writer’s Notebook,” along with forty-four stories and counting.
If not writing or reading, Malek plays rugby, hikes, and goes on road trips.
Rowan Wilson
Rowan Wilson is a second-year fiction student. After graduating from Colorado College in 2018, she spent time reporting for a local paper and currently works as a marketing writer. Rowan is from southwestern New Hampshire and enjoys hiking, swimming, and spending time with her two dogs. She writes short stories that explore human nature, people who act in unconventional ways, and ghosts.
Carrie Hiltz
Carrie Hiltz was born and raised in Farmington, Maine, where she graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maine at Farmington. She has two children with her husband who is a dedicated patron of the arts (but she still chooses to write under her maiden name Close, for continuity). She is in her second year of the MFA Fiction Writing program at UNH. Her first collection of poems and short stories, “What Have I Done?” was published by Unsolicited Press in 2022.
Emma Keamy
Emma is a first-year MFA student from Massachusetts. She recently graduated from Wheaton College (MA), where she completed her undergraduate honors thesis: the first third of a novel about three characters imbued with the powers of different symbiotic entities. She is also very interested in horror, and her passion for horror films tends to come through even in otherwise non-horrific works. She hopes to become a novelist, but she enjoys all kinds of writing.
Melanie Bradley
Melanie Bradley is a first year MFA student. She graduated from the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith in 2022 with a BA in English before moving back to her hometown in Nevada to work at a local charter high school. She has worked as a snow plow driver, barista, writing tutor, and special education instructional assistant. She loves reading, filming the occasional video about her favorite note taking and writing tools, eating ice cream, and looking at flowers, bugs, and cool rocks.
As a writer, Melanie is interested in magical realism, fantasy, using form as a function of storytelling, and exploring queer experience through fantastic metaphor.
Tabitha Soper
Tabitha Soper is a second year Fiction MFA student and co-host of UNH’s Read Free or Die. She specializes in the horror genre and is greatly inspired by the works of Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden, and Shirley Jackson. You can often find her in a dark room unfurling the dark tendrils of her mind onto the page.
Hayley Carpenter
Hayley C. graduated from Utah Valley University with a bachelor’s in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She also has an associate’s degree in Humanities and Social Sciences, which is a fancy way of saying she was a Psych major for two years.
This is Hayley’s second year in the MFA Writing program. Her favorite personal work tends to consider the “madwoman” archetype and how one might put all that chaos into a logical, readable nonfiction narrative. Unsurprisingly, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is her favorite novel. She enjoys 19th-century fashion, The Sims, and teaching English 401. Her students report a monotone voice and a humorous take sometimes.
Rebecca is working on her MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Nonfiction. She is a freelance writer for the outdoors industry and has spent the last year working on a project where she is hiking all of the trails in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She also works part time as a substitute teacher. Rebecca taught Special Education from 2013-2020 and holds a M.Ed. from UNH, graduating in 2013 with a K-12 General Special Education certification. Her interests revolve around the outdoors industry, hiking and backpacking culture, and narrative nonfiction. She plans on working as a freelance writer as well as working on getting her own memoir published. In 2020, Rebecca was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and went through treatment for nineteen months. Some of her writing centers around her diagnosis and how she remained active while undergoing treatment.
Steph grew up in Nashua, NH and holds a BA from UMass Amherst in Communication with a concentration in Rhetoric, and a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She worked for Heinemann Publishing for five years, producing several podcast series for K-12 educators. She is currently a freelance audio editor and producer, as well as a freelance writer. Previously, she wrote for The American Gardener, and spent many, many years working in greenhouses.
Steph in interested in ideas of home, sense of self, and political and cultural formation. Writers currently providing the most inspiration include Julie Otsuka, Barbara Kingsolver, Jacquelyn Landgraf, and Tracery Kidder. You can often find Steph in her community garden plot planting radish seeds, challenging her friends to games of backgammon, and loudly rehearsing karaoke tracks in her car. She resides in Dover, NH with her cat, Calliope.
Katayoun is an Iranian teacher and political activist who views teaching composition and creative writing as two sides of the same coin. After earning her MA in TESL/TEFL from Colorado State University, she committed herself to supporting her home country through its ongoing national revolution. She writes nonfiction essays about Iran to illuminate lesser-known facts and life experiences that many do not normally associate with Iran. Her goal is to broaden non-Persian speakers' understanding of Iran’s cultural, historical, and political heritage.
Sayer Kirk is a femme lesbian preoccupied with love stories. She believes strongly in the idea of lesbian ancestry and finding where she fits into the family tree. She dreams of a tranquil life centered around love, words on a page, and finding the beauty in the mundane. Her writing is heavily influenced by Minnie Bruce Pratt, Natalie Diaz, and Meg Day. She has her Bachelor's of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and is a first-year creative nonfiction student at the University of New Hampshire.
Rachel is a part-time MFA student in her first year back at UNH, where she was an undergrad in Animal Science a lifetime ago. Since then, she’s studied molecular biology and genomics, and works as scientific writer and editor in the biomedical field; she also edits as a volunteer for the litmag Pangyrus and the nonprofit organization Biodiversity for a Livable Climate. She’s finally decided that it’s time pursue her love of writing beyond the confines of her current job, and is thrilled to be returning to campus. While at UNH she plans to complete her memoir-in-progress, and to explore projects to build awareness of why the growing biodiversity crisis is so important, and what we can do about it.
Caleb Jagoda is a poet, journalist, and lord of the living room with a burning passion for a good half-soup, half-sandwich meal deal. He was assistant editor at New Hampshire Magazine, has reported for America’s Test Kitchen’s Proof podcast, Down East Magazine, and Beer & Weed Magazine, and has published poetry in Polaris Literary Magazine and Write on the DOT. He’s a first year poetry student and a graduate teaching assistant who hopes to unite the soul with oatmeal cookies just like his favorite poet, Bob Kaufman. You can find him surrounded by a rambunctious crew of stalwarts, crouched on a stoop like a gargoyle, or out on the town, digging the scene.
Cari Moll
Caroline grew up in Franklin, Massachusetts before embarking on their exploration through the rest of New England. They received their BA in English with a concentration in writing from Worcester State University and attended the Salem Poetry Seminar at Salem State University. After releasing a chapbook in 2019 with Ibbetson Street Press, they have gone on to publish work with Woodcrest Literary Magazine, Cardinal Sins Journal, and Awakened Voices, amongst others. Their work is inspired by the honesty within the human experience and the pain, pleasure, and love along the way. When not writing, they can be found at a rock show with a camera in hand or in a coffee shop with a maple latte and cheesy romance novel.
Haley Hodge
Haley is a third-year poet originally from the Blue Ridge Mountain region who is now decidedly unable to leave the New England coast. Haley serves as the Arts Editor for Barnstorm and is this year's Graduate Assistant for the Nossrat Yassini Poetry Festival.
If not out on a walkabout writing poems for the birds and the trees, you can find her with a coffee in hand, probably still thinking about the birds and trees and definitely the moon.
Kelsey Wiles
Kelsey grew up in our very own Durham, NH where middle school girlhood was defined by ding-dong-ditching down frat row, and high school was spent dodging college students in her little blue Prius. She maintained an affinity for adolescent shenanigans, finding herself studying middle grades education at the University of Vermont. Kelsey student-taught in a fifth and sixth-grade mixed humanities classroom, and following graduation, assistant directed the afterschool program at Williston Central School. Coming to UNH, she looks forward to teaching as a graduate teaching assistant.
Alongside her passion for teaching, she has always loved filling journals cover-to-cover, and within the last three years, she has developed a passion for poetry. At UVM, she minored in creative writing, capping her undergraduate education by creating a poetry chapbook, Good Girl. Kelsey is consumed with the feminine experience as it pertains to love, body, and mind.
When she is not teaching or writing, Kelsey can be found running, reading, or taking dance classes.
Kevin Le
Kevin grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in English with a concentration in Theory and Form, and a BA in the College of Letters. Though always wanting to write poetry as a vocation, he put it off until a hospitalization profoundly impacted his life. After recovering, he decided to pursue poetry without delay, and applied to UNH. His work is inspired by grief, love, and redemption, with careful attention to form and image. When not writing, he’s either in deep meditation or song.
Radhika Sen
RADHIKA is an aspiring artist and poet who lives in Dover, NH. She has spent her work life in nonprofits and educational institutions across India and America, often in roles that helped amplify the voices of others. She arrived at poetry whimsically and late—one evening on a porch in Dover, when a black cat appeared out of nowhere and the stars seemed to whisper to her. Since then, poetry has become her way of conjuring good omens, crafting spells of prosody, and reclaiming her own voice.
Keri Stewart
Keri is a poet, nature/eco-tourism journalist, and avid birdwatcher from Upton, MA. She is currently a Bird Tourism Columnist at Blinter Magazine where she writes about bird hotspots across the globe while educating people on environmental concerns like habitat disturbance. After self-publishing an experimental collection revolving around nature and the self (“Frolicking on Blackberry Lane”), Stewart is motivated to continue exploring the self, consciousness, and the pursuit of whimsy. When she’s not writing, you can find her frolicking in nature or trying to identify the bird that just flew by.
Ann DeCiccio
Ann DeCiccio’s interests include multilingual students’ perceptions of meaningful writing in the first-year composition class at community college. Ann has taught at Nashua Community College and at high schools in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Earlier, she wrote for several New England technology companies. As a freelance writer, her clients included the University of Massachusetts in Lowell and a shelter for survivors of domestic violence. Ann earned an M.A. in Writing and Literature from Rivier University in Nashua, NH, and a B.A. in English from Wheaton College in Norton, MA.
Jen Daly
Jen (she/her), a PhD student in English Composition, graduated with her BA and MA in Literature from Montclair State University. She has been teaching First Year Writing since 2016, and her research interests include 19th American women's rhetorics, rhetorics of resistance, feminist theory and rhetorics, queer theory and rhetorics, and First Year Writing.
Mali Barker
Mali Barker is in her forth year of the PhD program in Composition Studies. She has her M.A. in English from Boston College, and while there, she studied composition theory, pedagogy, and rhetoric, and she taught First Year Writing. She is now interested in studying the intersection between composition pedagogy, sociolinguistics, and cognitive poetics.
Rose O'Connor
Rose O’Connor is a third-year PhD student in Composition Studies. She earned her M.A. in English from Boston College and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington Bothell. Her research interests include multilingual writing, understandings of writing in the academy, and transitions from high school to college writing.
Bianca Bourgault
Bianca Bourgault is a first-year student of the PhD program in Composition Studies. Bianca earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Hampshire and her BA in English Literature from the University of Maine at Farmington. Her research interests are varied, but include feminist studies, capitalistic societies, and utilizing empathy while writing and in the classroom. Her work has been published in Chicago Story Press, You Might Need to Hear This, Rustica, and will be featured this fall in The Sun. When Bianca isn’t writing, you can find her spending time with her dog, Atticus, camping with her partner, or spending hours in a bookstore.
Elizabeth is a 6th year PhD candidate studying Victorian literature. Her main research focus is overlooked women writers, and her dissertation explores the concept of Victorian novelists "writing too much" and how this has been used to keep women like Margaret Oliphant, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charlotte Riddell, and Ouida out of the literary canon. Her other research interests include the Gothic, the marriage plot, and folklore and fairy tales. She received her MA in English Literary Studies: Romantic and Victorian Literature from Lancaster University in 2016 and wrote her dissertation on the use of oral folklore in the Victorian Gothic novel.
Aries Farrington
Aries is a second-year PhD student in English literature. They hold an MA in English with a focus on multicultural and transnational literature from East Carolina University as well as BAs in English literature and Religion and Philosophy from UNC Pembroke. Their research interests include ecocriticism, postcolonialism, identity, language, and Indigenous literature because it provides an opportunity to combine academia and activism. Their favorite authors are Alice Hoffman, Terry Pratchett, Louise Erdrich, Simon Ortiz, and Rupi Kaur. Aries lives in Portland, ME with their partner and five cats: Casper, Bilbo, Atticus, Maeve, and Fawn. In their limited free time they enjoy reading, listening to music, cross stitching, and DIY projects.
Alexa Hopkins
Alexa Hopkins is a forth year PhD student and holds an MFA in fiction from UMass Boston. Her work considers the ways that different expressions of gender, sexuality, and labor challenge and dismantle heteronormative capitalist systems, drawing connections between contemporary American fiction and reality.
Meggie is a third-year doctoral candidate at UNH. She attended Dartmouth College, where she majored in English as an undergraduate. Meggie holds an MS in Education from Antioch University NE and a MA in English from Middlebury College. She taught literature and history at the middle school level before deciding to return to the world of academia full-time. A life-long learner and teacher, Meggie believes that the study of literature is the act of falling in love with stories. Her scholarly work focuses on the intersection of gender and revenge within texts. She is interested in examining how value systems centered on honor/shame have shaped poetic ideals of the avenger, justice, and fate. Meggie hopes to explore how theologies of atonement, as well as historical and societal conceptions of gender and race, challenge ancient ideals of vengeance. Most recently, she re-examined Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre focusing on how race and gender impact the narrative of vendetta for female characters. Meggie resides in Durham, NH, with her partner, their two dogs (Archie and Togo), and a rabbit named Levin (named for her favorite Tolstoy character). You can find her running the roads and trails around Durham when she's not reading and teaching!
Cameron Netland
Cameron Netland grew up in Boxford Massachusetts and graduated from Connecticut College in 2018 with a bachelors in English and Economics. He then received his masters in Secondary Education from ASU in 2020 through Teach for America while teaching in Phoenix.
His interests include guitar, running, and chess. His literary interests range from antiquity to postmodernism. He aims to study classical works or American literature.
Jonathan Levitt is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in English literature. He holds master’s degrees in English from Boston College and in English secondary school teaching from Boston University. His interests are in Medieval and late Victorian/early modern literature. His research is focused on how J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by Medieval literature, as well as his experiences in World War I, to shape the fantasy genre into its modern form. He is also intrigued by how media such as video games, comics, and film represent classical literary themes.
Abby is a PhD student in the English Literature program. From North Carolina originally, she received her BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her areas of focus include transatlantic modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, and the intersection of class and trauma theories.
Her favorite writers include: Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Ocean Vuong, Oscar Wilde, Ada Limon, Seamus Heaney, and J. R. R. Tolkien. More broadly, she enjoys postmodern philosophy, jazz, the collected works of Natalie Wyn, anime, going outside, and Hozier's discography.
Chelsea Warren
Chelsea focuses on transatlantic gender politics and medical practices in the first half of the 19th century. Through analyzing the historical medical practices, Chelsea delves into the difference between the historical data and its representation in domestic novels. Chelsea received a BA in English from Ithaca College and an MA in English from SUNY Brockport. Chelsea's primary interest in fictional medicine is in childcare and country medicine, though they are also well-versed in etiquette and courting practices of the Georgian and Regency eras.
Julia McCoy
Julia is a third year Ph.D. student studying twentieth and twenty-first century women’s literature. Coupled with her enrollment in the Feminist Studies Certificate Program, she is especially interested in depictions of single women and first-person narration in women’s writing. Her favorites include Margaret Drabble, Zadie Smith, and Nora Ephron. Outside of the classroom, you can find her watching sitcoms or talking about the Boston Red Sox.
Christopher Westrate is a third-year doctoral student at UNH. He holds an MA from the University of Massachusetts, Boston where he studied Vladimir Nabokov’s work in parody and art theory. Chris taught literature and writing for many years at the high school level and enjoyed serving as executive director of his program for over a decade. Interested in cultural flux, Chris thinks a lot about how texts signal dramatic change as they interrogate social performance. He studies the spearheading of societal shift during iconoclastic periods, especially writers’ exploration of “the new” by way of repurposing outgoing semiotic systems. Literary interests: mythology and symbols, evolution of the novel, modernism, and Nabokov. Other interests: rambles via paths and pavement, public coffee drinking, nonprofit leadership, teaching, and amateur snowboarding.
