Our Alumni - Their Accomplishments     

Brigitte Byrd, Ph.D. 2003 - She is the author of three collections of poems: Song of a Living Room, (Ahsahta, 2009), The Dazzling Land (Black Zinnias, 2008) and Fence Above the Sea (Ahsahta, 2005). She is currenly an Assistant Professor of English at Clayton State University, where she teaches creative writing.

Maryhelen Cleverly Harmon, Ph.D., American Literature, 1981 - She is an Associate Professor of English, University of South Florida where she specializes in 19th century British and American literature and is a winner of the Krevanek Award, USF's highest teaching award. Harmon has written book chapters and articles on the English Romantics, Hawthorne, and Melville.

David Bottoms, Ph.D. 1982 - Robert Penn Warren selected David Bottoms's first collection, Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump, for the 1979 Walt Whitman Award. His recent work includes Armored Hearts: Selected and New Poems and the novel Easter Weekend. He is a Professor of English at Georgia State University and the State Poet Laureate for Georgia.

Raoul G. Cantero, III, B.A. 1982 - Justice Cantero was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court on July 10, 2002, by Governor Jeb Bush. He is the first Hispanic to sit on the Court. Justice Cantero has lectured on various topics, including Florida appellate procedure, appellate writing, federal appellate jurisdiction, expert witnesses, jury voire dire, and federal civil procedure. He also has taught at Florida State University's College of Law. He is author of “Certifying Questions to the Florida Supreme Court: What's So Important?” 76 Fla. Bar. J. No. 5 (May 2002); “Changes to the Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure,” 71 Fla. Bar J. No. 11 (Dec. 1997); “Discovery from Medical Experts: How Much is Too Much?”, 16 Trial Advocate Quarterly 1 (Winter 1997); “Non-Final Review of Insurance Coverage Issues: Wading through the Quagmire,” 69 Fla. Bar J. No. 9 (Oct. 1995); and co-author of “Controversy in the Competitive Bidding Process,” 68 Fla. Bar J. No. 9 (Oct. 1994). Justice Cantero is also an accomplished fiction writer, having published several short stories.

Heather Sellers, Ph.D. 1992 - Heather is the author of three books of poetry, Your Whole Life, Drinking Girls and Their Dresses, and His Boys in My House, a collection of stories, Georgia Underwater, which won a Barnes and Noble New Discovery Award, and Two books for writers, Page After Page and Chapter After Chapter. Her textbook for the multi-genre creative writing clasroom, The Practice Writing is forthcoming from Bedford/St Martins. Sellers has been a member of the Hope College faculty since 1995, and is a full professor of English. She is at work on a memior, Face First.

Pamela Ball, MA 1988 - Pam Ball is haole, born and raised on Oahu of American parents. Both of her novels, i>Lava and The Floating City, are set in Hawaii. She is the winner of numerous writing awards, including the Hemingway Short Fiction Award.

Jesse Lee Kercheval, BA 1983 - Poet, essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Jesse Lee Kercheval is the author of seven books, including Dog Angel, The Museum of Happiness, Space: A Memoir, and Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot and Structure. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin where she directs the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.

Masood Raja, Ph.D. 2005 - Masood has accepted a tenure-track position in literature at Kent State University of Ohio. He is the author of Once Upon A Country, a light satire about the leaders, politicians, and generals of a country called Khabistan.

Celia Kingsbury, Ph.D. 2000 - Celia is an Assistant Professor of English at Central Missouri State University. She is the author of The Peculiar Sanity of War: Hysteria in the Literature of World War I which examines the impact of war hysteria on definitions of sanity and on standards of behavior during World War I.

Steve Watkins, Ph.D. 1990 - Steve Watkins is author of The Black O: Racism and Redemption in an American Corporate Empire (University of Georgia Press), which won the Virginia College Stores Award for Best Book by a Virginia Author, and the story collection My Chaos Theory (Southern Methodist University Press). His stories and articles have appeared in dozens of publications, including North American Review, Quarterly West, The Nation, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. He teaches journalism and creative writing at the University of Mary Washington.