Welcome to our growing photo-album of SDSU Department of English and Comparative Literature Alumni. Estela Eaton (SDSU, MFA, 2005) has authored a libretto for an opera, Pumped Fiction, that opened to rave reviews in The New York Times last summer. Click here for more info! After a year abroad teaching in Seoul, South Korea, Eaton is stateside again introducing students to the joys of literature in Manhattan. Christine Waer (SDSU BA, English, 2000) graduated with her J.D. from The California Western School of Law in April 2006; after graduation, Waer moved to the big apple, New York City, and presently works for the New York City Administration for Children's Services. Our one and only Jacqueline "Jackie" Fleishon graduated from literature.sdsu.edu (aka The Department of English and Comparative Literature @ SDSU) in May of 2002 with a BA in English, and finished her MA in English from Chapman University in May 2005. Presently, she is a lecturer in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Chapman University and the Westwood College of Anaheim. The dashing man accompanying the Professor in this photo is Roger Jaquette.  Travis Ferré, one of our Spring 2006 graduates and a star in his Spring 2006 James Joyce seminar, has started his literary career at the top and is already the associate editor of Surfing Magazine. You can check out one of his more recent bylines here. Click the story to see alumni Beall's cool book! Click here to read more of San Diego Magazine! This update just came to our central office here on Montezuma Mesa from Annika Farber (SDSU, 2000): " I'm still in the PhD program at Pennsylvania State University, but now I am A[ll] B[ut] D[issertation].  The working title is "The Medieval artes amatoriae: The Rise of the Didactic in Andreas, Guillaume, Jean, and Gower." Also, I have an article forthcoming in Studies in Philology in Spring '08 entitled "Usurping 'Chaucers Dreme': Book of the Duchess and the Apocryphal Isle of Ladies."  Having finished up his PhD @ Brown University, Captain Jason Solinger is now an Assistant Professor of English at The Citadel--as a Professor, he also automatically serves as a Captain (!) in the Unorganized Militia of South Carolina (UMSC). Before he joined the faculty of this singular Southern institution (some odd melange of Harvard Yard, West Point and a mint julip), Solinger was a star MA student in the Graduate Program in English and Comparative Literature at SDSU. We heartily salute the new Captain and former literary Aztec, SDSU '96. Peter Lederer, BA 2002, MA2005 Nicloe Slavin, BA 2001 Brian Thill, BA 1999, is finishing his PhD at UC Irvine--his first publication appears in the collection to your left; click the cover and thrill to Thill's (alliteration rules!) success. Don't be shy!  Add your name, image and link to this page! brief updates   Dr. Michael Filas graduated with an MFA in fiction in 1996 and went onto the University of Washington in Seattle to complete a Ph.D. in American Literature and Culture. He is presently an  Assistant Professor of English at Westfield State College in Massachusetts. More here. Kate Petersen received a BA in English & Political Science, along with a Spanish minor, May, 2005 and is presently attending the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Marc García-Martinez received his MA from SDSU in 1996; from SDSU he jetted north to Santa Barbara and the Phd Program in English ; presently, he is a tenured Associate Professor of English at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, CA--classroom "action" shot above! Cindy Spires graduated December 2004 with a BA in English from SDSU; she has been admitted to Wayne State University's PhD program in English for Fall 2005 and is presently getting to know the Motor City!  Spires competed for and received an prestigious first-year  Teaching Assistantship with an generous stipend.  At Wayne State, her focus will be 20th Century British Lit, especially Muriel Spark and Samuel Beckett.  Diana Contreras, pictured opposite with gorgeous son Krishna Quetzal, is an SDSU Grad in Comparative Literature (BA 1993, with honors). She completed her MFA in FILM  from UCLA in 1998. A Senior Lecturer in the Chicana/o Studies Department at Cal State Northridge, she continues her work in the Arts, writing screenplays (Por un amor, 1999) and organizing Southland cultural events.  Click here for her most recent conference.   SDSU Lit English BA, Jeff Wilson graduated in December 2004; since then he has been busy shilling for SDSU’s Development office. Literature calls, however, and Jeff has most recently accepted an offer to move up the road and enter UC Irvine's PhD program in English, working with Victoria Silver on Milton, Julia Lupton on Shakespeare, and Steve Mailloux in the Critical Theory Emphasis. Wilson’s primary area of study is Renaissance British Literature (especially Milton), with a secondary interest in critical theory. Wilson is the recipient of  the  UCI Chancellor's Fellowship. English and Theatre major Eric Wallach, BA, SDSU 1994, has been dodging ghost lights directing, producing, and writing in New York City since his banner years here at SDSU with the production of Millesgarden, co-written and directed with Keith Geller. Some of his more amazing cultural and political interventions are available online: a wide-ranging, irreverent and engaging interview with Edward Albee is available here or by gently clicking on Mr. Albee's face; additionally, a record of Mr. Wallach's recent political acts of art, or are they artistic acts of politics?, are available here, or by gently clicking on Mr. Wallach's portrayal of a certain well-known religious figure. Joe Yaeger, BA, English 2003 Just checked in with this update: "Well, I tried to get into law school and was rejected.  I am in the mortgage industry now, recently promoted to the position of branch manager in San Francisco. Three of the five branch managers in northern California are  SDSU graduates, but of course I am the only one with the prestigious B.A. in English. While I assume my new position, my company is going to pay for me to live in the heart of San Francisco for the next 4 months until I find my own place. Isn't corporate America great? I hope everything is going great for the English/Comp Lit. department.  I look back on my undergraduate experience with the fondest memories.  I am very proud of the work I did as an English major at SDSU.  It was probably the best experience of my whole life.  Message to undergrads: savor it, smell it, roll around in it.  Trust me, you will miss it dearly when it's gone."   Looking into a recent bag of friendly email, we find that many SDSU Lit grads are killing trees left and right--we just heard again from MFA Grad, Linda Lenhoff (1995) who reports, "My second novel, Latte Lessons, gets released May 3. It will appear with noted publisher, Kensington Books. Latte Lessons got its start as a set of stories written for the MFA program in Jerry Bumpus's workshop way back when. Kensington bought the book unwritten as part of a 2 book deal, with my thesis, Life a la Mode (published Sept. 2003). Life a la Mode gets re-issued in April in mass market size as an admittedly bright red little book. So tell all SDSU undergraduates not to give up on getting their thesis published and to keep writing, because their publisher will want a second book as well!"   Laura Furlan Szanto,  a SDSU alum, (M.A. 2000), is now in her fifth year in the PhD program at UC Santa Barbara. A book Szanto co-edited, Crossing Lines: Race and Mixed Race Across the Geohistorical Divide, has been picked up by AltaMira Press. DAVID MORRIS, SDSU MA, English, May 2001 A few years back, literature.sdsu.edu grad alum David Morris authored a memorable memoir/exposé on the Texas A & M bonfire tragedy for salon.com.  More recently, Morris is the author of STORM ON THE HORIZON, now in paperback with Random House's Presidio imprint.  STORM is "the story of the deadliest battle of the 1991 Persian Gulf  War, a fight that resulted in 25 US dead. Told from a front  line Marine’s point of view, Storm on the Horizon is an up close and personal account of the first battle of the  smart bomb age; it is the story of a contest of wills that  forever changed the way the US military looks at itself and  set the stage for a new era of American military power, paving  the way for the victories in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq."  Kirkus Reviews: "A memorable study of a transformative battle...Lucid and well-written; a worthy companion to Anthony Swofford's Jarhead;" Publisher's Weekly Morris conveys how the fog (and smoke, dust and sand) of war looks to the people in it." Also available here, a more recent disturbing story on Iraq that appeared in the "pages" of Salon. Former SDSU English student Kevin Collins first reported to us a few years back that he was finishing his PhD work at the University of  Arkansas.  His  report then? "Last fall I was named the Diane C. Blair Fellow for Southern Studies. It's an interdisciplinary fellowship, and I am the first ever named from English. It's normally a three-year fellowship.I mention this in case you have any promising students out there--undergrad or MA--who are interested in Southern literature. There are more lucrative fellowships in the world, but the 18K--along with the teaching stipend and the low cost of living here--keeps the wolf from the door nicely. The fellowship is fairly new, and it's easier to get now than it will be in ten years." He checked in again, March 2005, with an update: "After two years as a visiting assistant at State Univ. of West Georgia, I was hired on a tenure track at Southerwestern Oklahoma State for 04-05.  I'm teaching lit., comp., and mass comm., and feature writing. I have a book credit (as editor) for a " critical edition" of William Gilmore Simms's The Cassique of Kiawah, and an article that created some buzz a couple years back in The Southern Literary Journal; lastly,  two upcoming articles in the *Dictionary of Literary Biography* volume due this summer on "Writers of the American Revolution" (John Jay and Richard Bland). Dr. Leon Lanzbom, MA, DC, recently completed his thesis, "Between Pictures and Words in Children's Literature." He now works at Cuyamaca and Mesa Colleges. For his latest doings, click the lanzbom.org link to your right! Jan Lee Ande, in addition to holding an M.A. in Asian studies and a Ph.D. in history of consciousness, earned her M.F.A. in poetry from San Diego State University in 2002.  Ande's first book, Instructions for Walking on Water, won the 2000 Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press. Her second book, Reliquary, won the 2002 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize from Texas Review Press.  Her poems appear in New Letters, Image, Nimrod, Notre Dame Review, Mississippi Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Poetry International and the anthologies Place of Passage (Story Line Press) and Jubilation (Beat Books).  She teaches poetry, poetics, and history of religions at Union Institute & University.  FUTURE PROFESSOR, WRITER, LAWYER, ARTIST WATCH! THE FOLLOWING SDSU UNDERGRADUATES, MFA and  MA STUDENTS HAVE BEEN ADMITTED INTO VARIOUS POST-GRADUATE PROGRAMS! CHEERS! MICHELE HAGGAR  NADIA ALVARADO  JAKE THOMAS  JASON DUNN SHOWING OFF THE SHEEPSKIN LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW, THE ONE AND ONLY DR. LINDA GIRARD, SDSU MA IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1997, DOCUMENTS HER BRAND NEW PHD FROM KENT STATE UNIVERSITY. SHE IS A TENURED ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois. Lori Loder, BA English 2002, has begun her second year of the Master of Fine Arts program at Chapman University. LETICIA C. THOMPSON, SPRING 2003, BA ENGLISH, HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY CALIFORNIA WESTERN SCHOOL OF LAW. FOR FALL 2003.  HEUI-YUNG PARK, WHO COMPLETED HER MA IN ENGLISH FROM SDSU IN 2002, WILL BEGIN HER DOCTORAL STUDY IN ENGLISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII (MANOA) FALL 2003 CHRISTINE WAER, BA ENGLISH, 2000, ADMITTED TO FALL 2003 J.D. PROGRAM AT CALIFORNIA WESTERN SCHOOL OF LAW. ANNIKA FARBER, BA ENGLISH, SDSU 2000, HAS BEEN ADMITTED TO THE DOCTORAL PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AT PENN STATE (WITH A GRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIP) FALL 2003.  AT COMMENCEMENT, ANNIKA WAS NAMED THIS DEPARTMENT'S (AND THE COLLEGES'S) OUTSTANDING GRADUATE.  LAST YEAR, SHE COMPLETED AN M.A. IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY. LYDIA ELDRIDGE, BA ENGLISH, SDSU 2002 HAS JUST BEEN ADMITTED INTO THE GRADUATE LITERATURE PROGRAM AT LOYOLA MARYMOUNT. MARLA GRUPE, MA 2003, SDSU, WILL JOIN THE PHD PROGRAM IN ENGLISH AT LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY FALL 2003. MONICA HUBEL, MA, COMPARATIVE LITERATURE EMPHASIS, WILL JOIN THE GERMAN DOCTORAL DEGREE PROGRAM AT UC DAVIS. B.A. GRAD, ILONA HARPE HAS BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. THE COMPARATIVE LITERATURE DOCTORAL DEGREE PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN HAS ACCEPTED 2000 MA GRAD CARLOS AMADOR FOR FALL 2003--AMADOR COMPLETED GRADUATE WORK IN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE AT SDSU. ROSINA TALAMANTES, WHO COMPLETED GRADUATE COURSE WORK IN LITERATURE AT SDSU, HAS BEEN ASKED TO JOIN THE PRESTIGIOUS MFA PROGRAM AT BENNINGTON COLLEGE FALL 2003. CAMP CROSBY, MA, AMERICAN LITERATURE EMPHASIS, HAS BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE PHD PROGRAM IN ENGLISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA. KELLY NICOLSON HAS BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. GWENDOLYN SPRING KURTZ, MA, COMPARATIVE LITERATURE EMPHASIS AND EDITOR EXTRAORDINAIRE OF pacific REVIEW 2002, HAS BEEN ADMITTED TO THE PHD PROGRAM IN ENGLISH AT UC RIVERSIDE AND THE DOCTORAL DEGREE PROGRAM IN LITERATURE AT UC SANTA CRUZ. SHE WILL BEGIN HER WORK AT UCSC THIS FALL. ERIK FRANKS, BA 2003 IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE, HAS BEEN ADMITTED TO THE LAW SCHOOL AT USD WITH A FULL FELLOWSHIP PACKAGE AS WELL AS THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA'S  HASTINGS COLLEGE OF THE LAW. SHIGE (COYOTE) SUZUKI HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY THREE PHD PROGRAMS SO FAR: UC SANTA CRUZ (LITERATURE DEPARTMENT), UC RIVERSIDE, AND USC (ENGLISH DEPARTMENT)--LIKE SPRING KURTZ, COYOTE PLANS TO HUG TREES AND CHANNEL THEORY IN SANTA CRUZ COME SEPTEMBER. JONATHAN SPEIGHT, ENGLISH BA, SPRING 2002, HAS BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE HOT NEW MFA PROGRAM AT UCRIVERSIDE.  CAROLA DWYER, MA, COMPARATIVE LITERATURE, SPRING 2002, SDSU IS COMPLETING HER FIRST YEAR IN THE PHD PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE/ MEDIEVAL STUDIES PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS IN URBANA-CHAMPAIGN. JAQUELINE FLEISHON, BA ENGLISH, 2002, HAS BEEN ACCEPTED INTO THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH, FALL 2003, AT CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY. Have you been admitted to a graduate program? Let us know so we can put your name in lights here--it's better than reality TV! Click here! RECENT UPDATES David Szuch, B.A.,'64(SDSC). General Secondary,'66.  37.5 years teaching high school English and coaching swimming at Lincoln High and Serra High. Retired 2003. Currently working on MA in British Lit at SDSU, substitute teaching, and member of SDSU Alumni (AL chapter).  After earning her BA in Creative Writing as well as her Teacher's Certification in Secondary English from the University of Texas at El Paso, Marian Haddad earned her MFA in Creative Writing at San Diego State University where she spent time as an associate editor for Poetry International.  While in San Diego, she was closely involved with Border Voices.  She has also engaged in graduate work  in the prose poem at Emerson College in Boston and was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to study philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.  Haddad's poetry and essays have appeared in various editions of The Rio Grande Review and Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders as well as The Texas Observer, Dark Horses, and San Diego Writers' Monthly.  Her work has been anthologized in Milkweed Editions' Stories from Where We Live:  The California Coast edited by Sara St. Antoine and is forthcoming in three anthologies:  Is This Forever, Or What?:  Poems and Paintings from Texas, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye and to be published by Greenwillow Books;  Arab American and Diaspora Literature, edited by Nathalie Handal and to be published by Interlink Publishing Group, and Direct My Pen Eastward:  Arab-American Women's Voices on Writing, edited by Susan Muaddi Darraj and to be published by Greenwood/Praeger.  She has compiled a chapbook entitled Saturn Falling Down, per the invitation of Texas Public Radio who printed a limited, signed edition.  A varied version of Saturn Falling Down has been invited for publiciation by Pecan Grove Press' editor, H. Palmer Hall.  Haddad's first full-length collection of poetry, Somewhere between Mexico and a River Called Home has recently appeared.  Her poem, We Are Born with Names has been incorporated into a theater production, Lost Recipes, a love song of resistance which combines the voices of multiple Arab-American and Jewish-American women writers.  She currently teaches creative writing as a visiting writer in   San Antonio, Texas schools and in continuing education workshops including, Writing Your Way into Healing:  Finding Light in the Darkness of Cancer, Death, and Aging and OASIS Workshops for the Elderly.  As well, she works in the Writers in the Community program for Gemini Ink, often with behaviorally challenged students.   She edits poetry and creative non-fiction manuscripts; three books, two by Jan Lee Ande, and one by Carol Barrett have won book prizes.  She teaches creative writing at the university level at various institutions including Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio Campus and Northwest Vista College.  She is currently working on two childrens' books, a collection of essays, and two manuscripts of poetry.  David Szuch, B.A.,'64(SDSC). General Secondary,'66.  37.5 years teaching high school English and coaching swimming at Lincoln High and Serra High. Retired 2003. Currently working on MA in British Lit at SDSU, substitute teaching, and member of SDSU Alumni (AL chapter).  WEB SI[GH]TINGS Chris Norton, John Deese, Eric Sacks, Abbie Berry, Tony Shafer, Kelly Vardiman, SDSU B.A. English, May 2002 an online literary 'zine by former undergraduate students and present MFA scribes who met in writing classes at SDSU.   SYDNEY BROWN, SDSU MFA, FICTION, MAY 2000 poetic reverie in a piece for HOW2, "exploring non-traditional directions in poetry and scholarship by women." ANDY MINGO, SDSU, MFA, ENGLISH, May 2000 an ongoing special study project that creatively indicts a 21st century technology monopoly NIKOLA DJUKIC, SDSU BA, English, May 1999 an online diary and critical commentary by an American in Serbia RENEE SWINDLE, SDSU MFA, Creative Writing, May 1998 a hot novel by a graduate of our MFA program in fiction as well as a singular short story in an anthology of contemporary African American erotica. TOMÁS RILEY, SDSU BA, English, May 1996 the heralded cyberbarrio of the domestically lauded, internationally recognized, and planetarily noted Taco Shop Poets.   BRYAN BAILEY, SDSU BA English May 1994, MFA May 1997 an on-line guide to writing; Bailey also works with a Webdesign unit here.   CHARLES "CHIP" PHILLIPS, SDSU MA, AMERICAN LITERATURE May 1995 a innovative journal of experimental literature. MATTHEW HARRIS, SDSU MA, AMERICAN LITERATURE, May 1993 the site for NBC's World's Most Amazing Videoswhere our gifted alum used to work as a story producer is now off the air. Harris is currently writing a one hour documentary for ESPN on Fritz Pollard - the first African American to play quarterback and the first to coach in the NFL. Harris was also a finalist in the Austin Film Festival last year for his screenplay, MOON OF POPPING TREES, a turn-of-the-century western. The title alludes to the Sioux name for December, the month in which the Wounded Knee massacre occurred. DAWAN STANFORD, SDSU, LITERATURE MINOR, MAY 1993 by day, a corporate attorney for a Silicon Valley megacorp; by nights, weekends, and vacations, a restless peripatetic scribe. LALO ALACRAZ, SDSU BA, Comparative Literature & Art, May 1991 the site of one of California's premier political cartoonists; also, his new syndicated comic strip site is available here as are his collected essays from LA Weekly.  Click here for Alacraz's take on the Aztec Mascot controversy. DR. JOSEPH ZORNADO, SDSU MA English, 1987 a new Routledge/Garland scholarly tome by an associate professor of English at Rhode Island College. If you are an English or Comparative Literature alumnus and are interested in having your work listed here, do please send a brief note with biographical and link information to the department's webmaster.

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