Charlotte Rich is a Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University whose teaching and research interests include American women authors and multicultural literature. She is the author of Transcending the New  Woman: Multiethnic Narratives in the Progressive Era (U of Missouri P, 2009), and her scholarship has appeared in journals including Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, MELUS, and The Edith Wharton Review. She has recently published on Kate Chopin and is currently at work on a project about Zelda Fitzgerald’s writing. Dr. Rich also co-directs and teaches courses with the Kentucky Institute for International Studies’ Paris-Munich Winter program. When not teaching or writing, Dr. Rich enjoys spending time with her two teen and young adult kids, traveling, gardening, and hiking.

Tom Butler has taught in the English Deptartment at EKU since 2006. He regularly teaches general education and English-majors classes on drama and modern and contemporary literature. He has published essays on the playwrights Samuel Beckett, Annie Baker, and Sarah Ruhl. When not in the classroom, he is likely running long distances or baking bread.

Heather Fox is Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of English Teaching Programs. She is also the author of Arranging Stories: Framing Social Commentary in Short Story Collections by Southern Women Writers (UP of Mississippi, 2022). A Frances S. Summersell Fellow and Phi Kappa Phi “Love of Learning” Award recipient, her broad range of research interests–English education, interdisciplinary approaches to early 19th through early 20th century American literature, women’s literature, writing pedagogy, narrative theory, and archive studies–has been published in south: a scholarly journal, The Explicator, The Faulkner Journal, Teaching/Writing, Southern Studies, The New Americanist, and other journals. The methodologies developed from these interests inform her approach to teaching, which seeks to connect areas of English studies, highlight interdisciplinary relationships, and support undergraduate research through collaboration and professional opportunities. An EKU Libraries Partnership Award (2022) and High-Impact Practice Teaching Award (2021) recipient, she partners with the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership to advise English Teaching and English and History Teaching majors as they prepare for careers in English education. Dr. Fox is currently working on an historical fiction project that links early 19th century and contemporary Young Adult literature, as well as an edited collection called “Students in the Archives.” When not teaching, writing, or researching in the archives, she enjoys historic renovation work, gardening, and spending time with her husband, three young adult children, and three rescued coonhounds in the Outer Banks. Further information is available on her website.

I’ve been teaching at EKU since 2008, back when our Low-Res MFA in Creative Writing program was new, even before we’d named it Bluegrass Writers Studio. I primarily teach creative writing, from our undergraduate intro courses (ENG 306) all the way to our graduate level workshops (ENW 820) and have been director of Bluegrass Writers Studio since 2016.

My essays and stories have been nominated for a few Pushcart Prizes and appeared in Ascent, Baltimore Review, Cimarron Review, Louisville Review, New Orleans Review, Ruminate, Salt Hill, Slice, The Southern Review, and elsewhere, usually with the word “Review” in the title. I am the author of a story collection, Delicate Men (Alternative Book Press, 2014), a creative nonfiction chapbook, Something L.A. (Blue Cubicle, 2015), and a novel, Californium (Plume-Penguin, 2016).

I’ve recently completed a collection of essays, Poser: A Mostly-True Memoir, and am now at work on a novel with the working title, Ignoreland.

My favorite courses to teach have been (still are) ENG 210 Enjoying Literature: The Literature of Baseball, ENG 306 Intro to Creative Writing, ENG 409 Advanced Creative Nonfiction, ENW 810 Writers on Writing, ENW 810 Forms of the Novel, and ENW 820 Prose Workshop. You can learn more about my publications, author events, and projects at rdeanwriter.com.

Dr. Susan Kroeg is a proud Midwestern farm girl who grew up loving to read and write. She discovered nineteenth-century English literature via historical romance novels. After completing her PhD she joined the faculty at EKU in 2001, where she teaches courses in English literature (primarily the 18th and 19th centuries, with a special emphasis on British Romanticism and the novels of Jane Austen), literature and film, and popular romance. She also writes romance novels under a pen name.

She lives in Richmond with her husband (a history professor) and their daughter.

Although I love my job, I did not initially intend to become a professor. After I graduated with my B.A. in English Literature, I spent six years in the advertising and marketing industries in Minneapolis (working on accounts like International Dairy Queen and Land O’Lakes Butter) before I realized that I would rather spend my life in the classroom. I have been teaching English composition at the university level since 1990, and technical and professional writing since the late 90s. When I started grad school, I thought I would be teaching literature throughout my career. I wrote my M.A. thesis on the representation of identity in British Romantic, Native American, and Buddhist literature. But when I moved on to my doctoral program in New Mexico, my interest in emergent visual media, my growing curiosity about Native American literature, and my previous experience in business allowed me to refine my focus more closely to what I have been teaching at EKU since 2007: professional and technical writing, visual rhetoric, and Native American literature. My favorite novel is Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko; my favorite movie is probably Spirited Away; and in terms of music, I like many genres and have been attending Dead (as in Grateful) shows since the 80s.

Jerry Nachtwey has been teaching at Eastern Kentucky University since 2006, where has taught a broad range of courses from Early World Literature, to Fantasy Literature, to History of the English Language. In both his courses and his scholarship, Dr. Nachtwey utilizes a variety of different media, including film, comics, games, video games and objects purporting to be “books.” He is interested in exploring the often-uncertain boundaries between work and play, sanctity and profanity, and communication and misunderstanding, all of which were discussed in his most recent book Strictly Fantasy: The Cultural Roots of Tabletop Role-Playing Games.

Dr. Nachtwey is also the coordinator of the brand new MA in English and Writing Professions Program at Eastern Kentucky University. The MAEWP seeks to give our graduate students the skills and knowledge they need to find successful employment–both within and without the academy–with just a two-year degree.

Jerry still plays tabletop games whenever he gets the chance, virtually if need be. He has beaten the original Legend of Zelda without taking the sword (except for Ganon…), but has so far failed to breed blue roses in Animal Crossing. He lives in Richmond, Kentucky with his wife and two sons, who are just the best.

Jill Parrott is a Professor of English with a focus in Rhetoric and Composition.

Dr. Parrott’s favorite part about her job is getting to do her own research and then using those experiences to help students try their own hand at research to see how fun it can be to create knowledge that would have never existed before if not for your intellectual work! Students might look at her like she’s grown a third arm when she says it, but research really is fun when you’re learning about something interesting to you.

If you want to hear Dr. Parrott’s voice, you can hear her read her piece called “Some People are Just Born Good Writers” (hint: that’s not true) for the podcast version of Bad Ideas about Writing.

Dr. Parrott is also a hot yoga teacher on the side! She uses hot vinyasa, power yoga, yin, and mindful meditation to be creative, keep healthy, and find focus.

Dr. Presley has been at EKU since 2011 and enjoys teaching courses in the Department of English at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She also loves teaching in the Honors Program and for Appalachian Studies.

Sharing her research, including work in-progress, is one of her favorite parts of teaching. She thinks it’s important to include students at all levels in scholarly conversations, especially ones that include EKU such as her recent publication in the Journal of Appalachian Studies. Currently, she is looking for a home for her book manuscript about Horace Kephart, a writer and environmental activist who successfully campaigned for a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains.

In her free time, she enjoys hiking, especially at the Pinnacles and Anglin Falls, and running. She’s also a knitter, baker of bread, and keeper of backyard chickens. She lives in beautiful Berea with her husband, daughter, two dog friends, and four chickens.

Professor Brent Shannon has taught at EKU since 2007. He’s originally from Indianapolis, IN, but has lived in Lexington, KY, since 1996. He earned his BA in English at Indiana University (Bloomington), his MA in English at the University of Cincinnati, and his PhD in English at the University of Kentucky. Prof. Shannon is the author of The Cut of His Coat Men, Dress, and Consumer Culture in Britain, 1860-1914 and publishes on British Victorian literature and masculinity. He lives in Lexington with his gorgeous wife and amazing daughter.

Dr. Cui Zhang regularly teaches First-Year Writing courses, English Grammar, Intro to Linguistics, and ESL Theories at EKU. Originally from China and having learned (and is still learning) English as a second language, she has great interest in the area of linguistics that is Second Language Acquisition. She is specifically interested in areas including reading and writing in a second language, vocabulary acquisition, and literacy skills transfer. She does research in second language writing development and reading-based writing such as summary and synthesis. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her beloved husband and two wonderful kids, reading, and hiking.