Carly Achinapura

Graduate Student

• cjachina@iu.edu

Carly Achinapura (she/her) is a Ph.D. student specializing in Victorian and nineteenth-century literature. Her research interests consist of studies in science history, disability studies, book history, and archival research. Most recently, her work has focused on Victorian chemistry and the “other” in Victorian scientific and medical environments. Before joining the graduate program at IU, she received her BA in English from the University of Florida and her MA in Literature, Media, and Culture from Florida State University.

Richard Allberry

Graduate Student

• rallberr@indiana.edu

Richard Allberry is a PhD student studying Victorian literature and culture. Before joining the graduate program at IU, he studied English at the Community College of Rhode Island and the University of Rhode Island. His primary research interests are cultural attitudes surrounding and literary representations of gambling in the Victorian novel and evolutionary theory's influence on novelistic form. His dissertation aims at once to account for the ostensible Victorian aversion to and marginalization of gambling through contemporaneous cultural anxieties surrounding changing, slippery conceptions of causality, and to examine the formal affordances these conceptions made available to novelists such as George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, and George Eliot. 

Amber Alsaigh

Graduate Student

• amalsa@iu.edu

Amber Alsaigh is a Literature M.A./Ph.D. student with interests in Victorian literature, women writers, and the transatlantic nineteenth century. Her work is concerned especially with women’s vocality as a mechanism for female agency and creative authority. Prior to studying at IU, she received her B.A. in English from Fairfield University.

Maggie Aschmeyer

Graduate Student

Seungmin Baek

• seunbaek@iu.edu

Seungmin is a PhD student studying British Romantic poetry and particularly its interaction with its contemporary discourses in the "life sciences." While her primary research interest lies in the Romantic period, she is more broadly interested in how literature has affected or have been affected by various scientific discoveries in the early modern period. She would like her research to shed light on how bodily feelings have and continue to relate to cognition, and furthermore to both the reception and production of literature. She holds a BA and MA in English from Yonsei University.

Shataparni (Titir) Bhattacharya

Graduate Student

• shabhat@iu.edu

Amber Bowes

Graduate Student

• arbowes@iu.edu

Amber Bowes is a PhD candidate specializing in nineteenth-century literature, with interests in book history, aesthetic movements, and affect. She is at work on her dissertation, titled “Victorian Kitsch: Art Books, Gift Books, and the Development of an Aesthetic Category.”Amber is Book Review Editor for the Victorian Studies journal and works part-time in reference at the Lilly Library. She is the 2026 recipient of the Amy P. Goldman Fellowship in Pre-Raphaelite Studies.

Anne Boylan

Graduate Student

• anboylan@iu.edu

Anne Boylan is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in Victorian literature with interests in gender, sexuality, and cultural studies. She is currently working on a dissertation on manifestations of liberal gender ideology in Victorian literature and its persistence in Western neoliberal feminism. She is currently managing editor of Victorian Studies and has worked as manuscript assistant at the Lilly Library since 2018. She received a B.A. from Bard College in 2013 and before coming to IU she was marketing manager for Boston Review.

Martha Clare Brinkman

Graduate Student

• mcbrinkm@iu.edu

Clare Brinkman is an English Literature PhD student. She focuses primarily on Victorian Literature, with a particular interest in the poetry of Robert Browning. Her general interests include religion, morality, and feminist criticism. Prior to attending IU, she earned her BA in English, with minors in Creative Writing and Medieval/Early Modern Studies, from Florida Gulf Coast University and her MA in English from the University of Denver.

Hrishita Chatterjee

Graduate Student

• hchatte@iu.edu

Sam Chirtel

Graduate Student

• schirtel@iu.edu

Sam is an MA/PhD student, science fiction writer, and former biophyicist. His research will probably focus on late twentieth century and early twenty-first century British and American science fiction, particularly space-noir, the Singulatiy, and cosmic horror, but who can predict the future? He is also developing an interest in Victorian Spiritualism to round things out. Before coming to IU, Sam received a B.A. in Biophysics from The John Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The University of Colorado Boulder. A lifelong animal lover, Sam dreams about the giant squid, misses the moose in Colorado, and is the proud parent of a three-year-old American Bulldog named Panda Bear. 

Chloe Naekyung Noh

Graduate Student

• amalsa@iu.edu

Chloe Naekyung Noh is a PhD student studying British modernist literature, with a particular emphasis on Virginia Woolf. She is interested in British imperial history and culture, and her research examines how modernist aesthetics emerge from and respond to the conditions of modernity that continue to speak to the present–a hyper-connected network that facilitates the spread of pandemics, polarized politics, and the looming anxiety over the possibility of total war. She is also interested in contemporary fictions and films that creatively engage with modernist conventions to capture the pressures of globalization on postcolonial societies. She holds a BA and MA in English from Sogang University.

Kyung Cho

Graduate Student

• kyuncho@iu.edu

Kyung Cho is an early modernist and a Ph.D. student in Literature at IU. Before studying at IU, she earned her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Ewha Womans University in South Korea. Her primary research focuses on English Renaissance literature, with particular emphasis on themes related to race, postcolonialism, and body politics. 

Abby Clayton

Graduate Student

• aclayto@iu.edu

Abby is a teacher-scholar with a commitment to increasing the accessibility of humanities education. Her own research interests lie in nineteenth-century transatlantic news media and its making of Anglo-American nationalism. You can find her most recent work on JSTOR Daily or in the journal Victorian Review.

Thade Jude Correa

Graduate Student

• tcorrea@iu.edu

Raheem Elmore

Graduate Student

• rtelmore@iu.edu

I am a dual Ph.D. student in the departments of English and African American and African Diaspora Studies. I specialize in African American Literature and 20^th and 21^st century American Literature. I received my B.A. in English: Pre-Education from the Ohio State University and my M.A. in English: Teaching from the University of Dayton. I am a former k-12 educator. My research is interested in examining relationships between and developments in multicultural and Black-centered educational models. I am interested in understanding how literature choices, pedagogical approaches, and literary interpretations influence the teaching and learning experiences of educators and students in the English and Language Arts classrooms at k-12 schools that implement culturally sustaining and multicultural pedagogies.   

Zachary Engledow

Graduate Student

• zacclift@iu.edu

Zachary Engledow is a native of Alabama where he received an Honors B.A. in English Literature from the University of Montevallo. While at Montevallo, he completed an Honors thesis exploring moments of beheading, penetration, and castration as queer, suggesting that the medieval romance is in itself a queer genre. He is a medievalist in the M.A./Ph.D. program and his research interests include: medieval romance, queer theory/history, and the relationship between modern queer identity and the medieval past. He is also interested in exploring Germanic and North Sea literature and culture in relation to queerness and transmission. 

Maggie Ephraim

Graduate Student

• mephraim@iu.edu

Maggie Ephraim’s research focuses on women who resist gender roles and social convention in literature of the British Isles. She is an English Literature Ph.D. student who earned her B.A. in English from DePauw University in 2021, where she also completed a minor in Ancient Greek. Maggie’s current research focuses on how stories change—or don’t change—through translation, time period, and adaption. 

Samuel Evola

Graduate Student

• sevola@iu.edu

Samuel Evola is a PhD candidate studying English and cognitive science. He is broadly interested in the question of how narratives influence readers in the real world. His dissertation uses empirical methods typical of the social sciences to analyze the ways that character and plot are negotiated by readers of Victorian multiplot fiction. Other projects include examining the role of foreshadowing in shaping the reading experience and investigating how readers consider multiple, incompatible possibilities while reading. A former high school teacher, he has an abiding interest in curriculum and pedagogy, especially interdisciplinary approaches and those that situate the unique contributions of the humanities within a broader educational context.

Abigail Fathauer

Graduate Student

• abfath@iu.edu

I received my B.A English from DePauw University in 2025, and am currently studying English and Library Science through IU’s dual masters program. My research interests include medieval Celtic and Anglo-Saxon literature, folklore studies, the book as object, and feminist and post-colonial readings of medieval literature.

Renissa Gannie

Graduate Student

• rrgannie@iu.edu

Renissa R. Gannie earned her BA in English Literature and distinction in History from the University of Denver. She continued her studies at the same university, obtaining her MA in English Literature, focusing on Native American Studies. Renissa is a Ph.D. student at Indiana University studying Victorian literature. She focuses on blending British and Caribbean literature of the century and breaking down traditional views of gender, race, and colonialism.

Maggie Gilchrist

Graduate Student

• magilch@iu.edu

Maggie Gilchrist is a PhD student specializing in late medieval literature. Her work primarily deals with representations of death and the (un)dead, especially with regards to the ways in which dead and dying bodies convey meaning to and for the living​. In addition, her research explores the corpse as a site for working through both personal and cultural traumas.  

Lindsay Gill

Graduate Student

• lg8@iu.edu

Lindsay Gill is a PhD Candidate in English with a minor from the Luddy School, though she has also worked closely with the Medieval Studies Institute. She recently graduated with an MLS in Rare Books and Manuscripts from Indiana University-Bloomington. Her research examines Mariology, manuscripts, and the ways in which women's behaviors were described and prescribed in early medieval England. 

Tess Given

Graduate Student

• tjgiven@iu.edu

Tess J Given is a PhD student of English literature and associate composition instructor. They graduated Grinnell College with a BA in Biology and English, and have a MA from the University of Kentucky in English. They focus on cyborg studies of the transatlantic eighteenth century and contemporary SF genre, focusing on reproduction and futurity through the lens of queer theory, new materialisms, and trans- and post-humanisms. They try to bridge contemporary theoretical conversations with texts across their archive, and with their pedagogical practice. 

Emma Gorman

• epgorman@iu.edu

Emma Gorman is an MA/PhD student from Arlington, VA specializing in Medieval and Renaissance literature. Her research interests include Biblical literature and translation, Old English poetry, Milton, and the history of the book. She is especially fascinated by the ways in which Biblical translation and creative reimagining may become intertwined. Before coming to IU, she received her BA in English and Music from the University of Virginia.

Helen Gunn

Graduate Student

• gunnhe@iu.edu

Helen Gunn is an English PhD student specializing in modern drama. Her interests include theories of temporality, language, and trauma, along with playwrights such as Beckett and Churchill. Before attending IU, she earned her BA from Rice University and her MA from Boston College. 

Jiwon Ha

Graduate Student

• jiwha@iu.edu

Milo Hicks

Graduate Student

• milohick@iu.edu

Milo Murphy Hicks is a PhD candidate in English at Indiana University, Bloomington. Their work in literary studies, philosophy, and cognitive science focuses on Anglophone short fiction, narrative thinking, and the social and cultural functions of storytelling. Hicks’s current project examines the 1980s minimalist short story to reframe its self-conscious literary minimalism as a set of rhetorical and aesthetic tactics that writers used to navigate the professional and institutional demands of their era.

Benjamin Hoover

Graduate Student

• bhhoover@iu.edu

Christina Irmen

• cirmen@iu.edu

Christina is a Literature PhD student focusing primarily on 20th century American literature and Reception Theory/the Phenomenology of forms. Her research interests center on adaptations of canonical literature, from page to stage and screen, with a particular affinity for The Great Gatsby. Prior to IU, Christina received an MA in Theatre & Performance Studies from Washington University and a BA in English from University of Pennsylvania.

Emma Johnson

• johnsemd@iu.edu

Emma Johnson (she/ her) is a PhD student primarily focusing on 19th century British Literature and feminist psychoanalysis. She earned a BA in English from Wellesley College and an MA in English from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her Masters' Thesis explored repression and trauma theory in Jane Austen's "Emma" and "Mansfield Park," while her undergraduate thesis examined Anne Bronte's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," Temperance rhetoric, and gender.  Her teaching experience includes TA positions in literature and film classes at CU Boulder, as well as work with the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) and City Year Chicago.  Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Literature at IU Bloomington and teaching composition.

Daeun Kim

Graduate Student

• dki2@iu.edu

Sehee Kim

Graduate Student

• sehekim@iu.edu

Sehee is a PhD student in English at Indiana University Bloomington. His primary research interest lies in American poetry with an emphasis on genre studies and feminist criticisms. He focuses on how our conceptualization of literary genres as an epistemological category could reflect and shape our ways of imagining personhood, gender, and social structures. He wishes to think through/with poets such as Emily Dickinson, Rita Dove, Suji Kwock Kim, and more, keeping in mind conversations from lyric theory, affect theory, and poststructuralist modes of thought. He holds a BA and MA in English from Korea University.

Ryan Lally

Graduate Student

• rlally@iu.edu

I am a Literature M.A./Ph.D. student with a B.A. in English from Samford University. My research interests include genre conventions in twentieth century American poetry, with a particular focus on odes. Prior to enrolling at IU, I was a Writing Coach and developmental English lab instructor at Southern Union State Community College in Opelika, Alabama.  

Yi-Chen Andrea Lay

Graduate Student

• yilay@iu.edu

Evan Leake

Graduate Student

• ejleake@iu.edu

Evan Leake is a PhD candidate specializing in nineteenth century American literature. He is primarily interested in the relationship between literature, photography, and collective memory. His dissertation examines how literary and visual representations of the U.S. Civil War shaped understandings of national identity and democratic citizenship in the postbellum period and subsequently laid the ideological foundations for imperialist interventions in Cuba and the Philippines. He also serves as the Book Review Editor at Victorian Studies. Prior to coming to IU, Evan received his B.S. from West Point.

Rebekah Leake

• rlippens@iu.edu

Rebekah Leake is a medievalist interested in late medieval hagiography, manuscript culture, and childbirth rituals. Before coming to IU, she received an MPhil in medieval literature from the University of Cambridge and a BA in English and Religious Studies from the University of Chicago. Rebekah is also the Associate Director of Academic Advising for the Media School.

Haein Lee

• hl135@iu.edu

Hoon Lee

Graduate Student

• jle30@iu.edu

Hoon Lee is a PhD candidate in English and Associate Instructor at Indiana University Bloomington. His focus is contemporary Black and Asian American poetry, poetry and institution, lyric theory, popular music, and sound studies. He is specifically interested in how poetry disrupts institutionality by creating spatial and temporal alterity, offering us alternative forms of living and future survival. His essay, "The Techno-Woman Warrior: K-pop and the Sound of Asian Futurism," is forthcoming in peer-reviewed sound studies online platform Sounding Out! He holds a BA in English Education and an MA in English Literature from Seoul National University, South Korea.

Taylor Lutz

Graduate Student

• lutzt@iu.edu

Taylor Lutz is a PhD student in Literature. Her research interests include transatlantic literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, women’s writing and representation, and literacy studies. Taylor received her BA in English from Alma College and her MA in English from Ball State University. Before coming to Indiana University Bloomington, Taylor taught composition and literature at the College of Coastal Georgia.

Rin MacRitchie

Graduate Student

• emacritc@iu.edu

Rin is a reader and writer from Northern Colorado. She received a BA in English and Spanish from the University of Denver in 2020 and an MLitt in Comparative Literature from the University of Glasgow in 2022. Her research interests include contemporary literature, decolonial ecofeminism, and representations of aging, illness, and death in novels and film.

John Manley

Graduate Student

• jomanley@iu.edu

I'm a doctoral candidate in English at IU-Bloomington. Though my studies primarily center on modern/contemporary poetry and poetics, I also read and write about the relationship between rhetoric and critical theory, the history of Anglo-American philosophy, and narratology. Before arriving at IU, I took an MA in English Literature at Marquette University (2015). My hobbies include long walks in the snow, unnecessarily complex board games, and pick-up hockey. 

Carolyn Marino

Graduate Student

• capmarin@iu.edu

Carolyn Marino is an English Literature M.A./Ph.D. student and the 2020-2021 Renaissance Studies fellow. Prior to attending IU Bloomington, she earned her B.A. in English Literary Studies with a minor in Religious Studies from Bucknell University. Her undergraduate honors thesis explored the conditions for martyrdom exacted through “self-homicide” in John Donne’s Biathanatos. Her primary research interests include metaphysical poetry, early modern drama, and religious tracts and publications.  

James Masanek

Graduate Student

• jmasanek@iu.edu

Jesse Matlock

Graduate Student

• jedmatlo@iu.edu

Jesse Matlock is an English PhD candidate at Indiana University Bloomington studying comics, metafiction, and (unnatural) narratology. His current work focuses on narrative metalepsis as emotional affect. He earned his MA in English from Arkansas State University (2019) and his BA in English from Henderson State University (2004). Superman no. 22 by John Byrne was his first comic book.

Dylan McCollum

• dylmccol@iu.edu

Dylan McCollum is an English PhD student interested in ecocriticism and the literature and languages of the medieval North Sea region. He holds a BA in History from Tennessee Tech University and a MA in English from Middle Tennessee State University, where he completed a thesis titled “Re-enchanting Nature: Mythic and Medieval Environmentalism in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium.” His current research examines human perception of and interaction with the non-human in early medieval English literature.

Roarke K. McDonald

Graduate Student

• mcdonark@iu.edu

Roarke McDonald is an M.A./Ph.D. student studying contemporary literature and aesthetic philosophy. He focuses on autofiction and experimental modes of writing the ‘self’ in the work of Roberto Bolaño, Karl Ove Knausgård, and Rachel Cusk, among other authors. His recent research applies Jacques Rancière’s work on politics-aesthetics as the ‘distribution of the sensible’ in reading narratives of memory, maturation, and the practice of writing the everyday.   

Robert Metaxatos

Graduate Student

• rmetaxa@iu.edu

Robert Metaxatos is an MA/PhD student whose scholarship works to develop connections between contemporary Anglophone literature and biopolitical theory. His interests in this area span the neoliberal politics of Empire; the socio-historical construction and maintenance of racial boundaries; medico-legal encounters of sex/gender transgressive people; and relations between technology, humans, and animals. Before coming to IU Robert completed a BA in English and Sociology at William & Mary, where he specialized in globalization and gendered work. 

Sean Mier

Graduate Student

• smier@indiana.edu

Sean Mier received his MA in English from University of Colorado-Boulder and is currently pursuing a PhD with emphases in Victorian literature and studies in the history of the book. His past work has considered the intersection of nineteenth-century print technologies and conventions with more embodied modes of communication, like handwriting. 

Grace Miller

Graduate Student

• gvmiller@iu.edu

Grace Miller is a PhD student who studies contemporary English Literature, specifically through the theoretical lens of the posthuman. Before attending IU, she earned a BA in English and a BA in Economics with a focus on Behavioral Cognition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Grace’s scholarly interests can usually be found in the blurry intersection of narrative, culture, and digital media; her current research is grounded in the materiality of embodiment—especially as it intersects with narratives of belonging, both on- and off-line. 

Yuma Morooka

Graduate Student

• ymorooka@iu.edu

Yuma Morooka is a PhD student focusing on studies on sentimentalism and affect. Currently he is interested in interracial sympathy and twentieth-century African American literature in the age of racial liberalism. His article "'Too free a fancy: Reconsidering the Self in Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady" appears in Studies in English Literature (a Japanese journal). He holds a BA and MA in English and American Literature from Rikkyo University, Japan.

James Neisen

Graduate Student

• jtneisen@iu.edu

James Neisen is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature. His areas of interest include post-WWII American culture and poetry. His dissertation-in-progress utilizes affect theory to reconsider the affordances of various charming performative modes surrounding 1960s protest movements, as exemplified by the Yippies!, Muhammad Ali, Valerie Solanas, and many others. Before coming to IU, he received a B.A. from Vanderbilt University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, and an M.A. in English Literature from DePaul University.

Lydia Nixon

Graduate Student

• lydnixon@iu.edu

Jenna Novosel

• jlnovose@iu.edu

Jenna (she/her) is a Ph.D. student on the Literature track and an instructor for W131 Composition courses. Before coming to IU, Jenna received her BA in Literary Studies from Roanoke College and her MA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago. Jenna's interests primarily lie in Victorian genre fiction, especially science fiction, fantasy, and the weird. She is particularly interested in the ways the sciences and the occult converge to create unique epistemologies and affects. In addition to Victorian fiction, Jenna has a deep affinity for D&D, Classic Hollywood movies, and crochet.

Jordan Ogle

• jlogle@iu.edu

Jevon Osborne

• jevmosbo@iu.edu

Jevon Osborne is a PhD student studying twentieth and twenty-first century literature, especially modernism and postmodernism (with an interest in film and theory on the side). Jevon is interested in investigating what defines literary genres and forms and how deconstruction theory can be applied to the language of our technological age. Before studying at IU, he earned his B.A. and M.A. from Ball State University.

Blake Overman

Graduate Student

• blover@iu.edu

Maddie Parker

Graduate Student

• mp13@iu.edu

I am an M.A./PhD candidate and a fellow of Indiana University’s Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies.  While I focus primarily on the poetry and prose of the Romantic era, I am also interested in exploring how eighteenth-century events like the French Revolution shaped the ideologies of Europe’s literati.  This correlation between literature and political thought encourages my further interest in the expatriations of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European writers to the new milieu of early America.

Claire Patzner

Graduate Student

• cpatzner@iu.edu

Claire Patzner is an MA/PhD from St. Paul, Minnesota. She is pursuing a dual degree in English Literature and Japanese. She received her BA in English from Cornell University. Her research interests include investigating film depictions of ecological disasters across different national contexts. She is also interested in comparative literature studies and translations of 20th and 21st-century ecopoetry.

Sarah Pedzinski

Graduate Student

• spedzins@iu.edu

Sarah Pedzinski is a PhD candidate who studies dragons in early medieval literatures. Her dissertation focuses on dragons and natural histories in the Beowulf manuscript. Sarah is also a full-time Instructional Consultant at the IU Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning where she helps faculty develop curricula that emphasize inclusive learning and student agency. 

Rachel Peters

• peterraa@iu.edu

Alp Eren Pirli

Graduate Student

• alppirli@iu.edu

Alp Eren Pirli is an MA/PhD student specializing in nineteenth and early-twentieth century American prose fiction. He is interested in the boundaries of genre as defined by sociocultural, historical, and material contexts, as well as a range of authors from Horatio Alger Jr. to Edith Wharton. He holds a BA in English from Boğaziçi University, Turkey. 

Joshua Pontillo

Graduate Student

• jpontill@iu.edu

Joshua Pontillo is an English literature PhD candidate at Indiana University Bloomington, with BAs in English and Religious Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill. His research concerns the languages and literatures of the early medieval North Atlantic, especially Old English, Old Irish, and Old Norse. He engages with ecocriticism to read the giants of these literary traditions as meaningful devices for considering human-environmental relationships.

Brian Pulverenti

Graduate Student

• bpulvere@iu.edu

Brian Pulverenti is a M.A/Ph.D. student studying Victorian literature. He earned his MA in Classical Studies from the University of Notre Dame where he wrote his MA thesis entitled “Posthumanism in Odysseus’ Apologoi.” During his time there, he taught classes on both Latin and Ancient Greek. At Indiana University, his research considers Victorian reception of the classical world with a particular emphasis on the epic tradition more broadly. Currently, he is teaching “W170 - Talking Baseball,” a course he designed that teaches analytical reading and writing by examining representations of baseball in film, prose, and poetry. 

Joshua Rawleigh

Graduate Student

• jrawleig@iu.edu

Joshua Rawleigh is a literature PhD student. He received his BA in History from Gordon College  and his MSt by Research from the University of Edinburgh. His research tends to focus on the intersection between religion and literature in the long nineteenth century. In particular, he has written and taught on the Scottish author George MacDonald, patristic theology, Tennyson’s poetics, and hermetic philosophy as ways to understand nineteenth-century British society’s complex relationship with the past. 

Mikaela Renshaw

Graduate Student

• mrenshaw@iu.edu

Mikaela Renshaw is currently pursuing her PhD in English Language and Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is particularly interested in the qualities of kingship and heroism, particularly in the romance and epic genres. 

Nicole Rizzo

Graduate Student

• nrizzo@iu.edu

Nicole Rizzo is a Ph.D. candidate focusing on 20th and 21st century American and British literature, modernism, and postmodern drama. Her research interests include trauma studies, disability studies, gender & sexuality studies, queer theory, critical race theory, and performance studies. While at IU, she earned an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. Minor in Gender Studies. She earned her B.A. in English with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Boston University and is an alumna of the Kilachand Honors College. Nicole is especially interested in the intersection of social activism and art as well as in how interdisciplinary collaboration can be generative for feminist discourse and action around social justice issues.

Matthew Robinson

Graduate Student

• mjr1@iu.edu

Mariah Roman

• cirmen@iu.edu

Ashley Rushing

Graduate Student

• ashrush@iu.edu

Ashley is an M.A./Ph.D student in literature. Her focuses are British Romanticism and modern philosophy dealing with the Age of Enlightenment. She is broadly interested in the application of literature as an accessible vehicle for understanding philosophical theories of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Before coming to IU, Ashley received her B.A. in English and Philosophy from Elmhurst University.

Kate Rutherford

Graduate Student

• kruther@iu.edu

Kate Rutherford is a PhD student primarily interested in 20th-century/contemporary science fiction and dystopian literature. Her other related interests include posthumanism and media studies. Kate holds a BA in English: Secondary Education with minors in History: Secondary Education, Theatre, and Global & International Studies from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI and a MA in English from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. During her undergraduate studies, Kate studied abroad at the University of Cambridge and Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom. Outside of work and school, Kate enjoys travel, fashion, fitness, theatre, live music, and anything adventurous. 

Sushmita Samaddar

Graduate Student

• ssamadd@iu.edu

Sushmita Samaddar is a PhD candidate in Literature specializing in Ecocriticism. Her research explores the production and manifestation of ecoanxiety and ecotrauma in postcolonial South Asian diaspora (human and nonhuman), and her inquiry approach is staunchly interdisciplinary. She holds an MA in Poetry and Poetics from the University of York, UK (2018) and a BSc (Hons) in Economics from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, India (2014). She is also a former Young India Fellow (2015). 

Sarah Schmitt

Graduate Student

• sjschmit@iu.edu

Sarah J. Schmitt is a PhD student working on both seventeenth- and nineteenth-century literature. She is the current Assistant Book Review Editor at Victorian Studies. Before coming to IU, Sarah received her MA from Michigan State. 

Devan Schnecker

Graduate Student

• dlschnec@iu.edu

Devan Schnecker is pursuing a PhD in English Literature here at Indiana University with a minor in Victorian Studies. Her main area of focus is British Literature from the long nineteenth century, particularly such literature by and/or about women and queerness. She is particularly interested in the portrayal and exploration of gender and sexuality in such novels and related ephemera, along with related questions of space, place, and embodiment within an 18th and 19th century framework of colonialism and imperialism.

Before coming to IU, Devan received her BA in English Literature and Anthropology from the Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, and her MA in English Literature with a concentration in British and Irish Literary Cultural Studies from Florida State University.

Devan also currently works part-time at the Lilly Library as a Reference Assistant, where she explores much of her own interests in the long nineteenth century and beyond. 

Leo Schneider

Graduate Student

• leoschn@iu.edu

Ishita Sehgal

Graduate Student

• isehgal@iu.edu

Ishita comes from Kanpur, India.She did her BA in English from Ashoka University,India and her MPhil in Gender Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. Her research interests lie in Graphic Novels, Visual Literature and Ekphrasis. She is particularly inquisitive about the gutters, blank spaces and how we form our identity and memory from these spaces. Her questions of displacement and belonging are deeply influenced by colors and narratives of the graphic literature. In her fun time, she likes to read, travel and is a trained Indian Classical Dancer.

Evan Sennett

Graduate Student

• evjasenn@iu.edu

Evan Sennett specializes in nineteenth-century literature in the United States, with a special interest in the theme of place-making literature. He often uses twentieth-century nature writings as a way to envision dialogues across time. He is also a filmmaker, usually turning to Kentucky as a setting.

Katie Shy

Graduate Student

• kshy@iu.edu

I am an M.A./Ph.D. candidate focusing on 20th century British literature. Before coming to Bloomington, I completed a B.A. in English and Classics at Yale. Over the next few years, I am excited to spend time with modernist novels and realist novels, particularly exploring the depiction of domestic life, family relations, and women writers. 

Heeji Son

Graduate Student

• heejson@iu.edu

Heeji is a Ph.D. student in English specializing in modernism and twentieth-century literature. Her research examines how vulnerable bodies, such as the wounded, disabled, pregnant, and maternal, are represented in modernist novels. While modernism is often seen as preoccupied with the inner mind and isolated self, she shows how modernist texts frequently portray bodies mingling, touching, and connecting to generate possibilities of affective selves and communities. Her broader interests include care ethics, friendship, motherhood, and trauma, as well as new materialist and post-humanist approaches to the material body. She is currently expanding her work to global modernism, with particular attention to the emergence and adaptation of modernism in Korea under Japanese rule. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English from Seoul National University. Her favorite writer is Virginia Woolf, and she is always glad to talk with anyone who loves Woolf’s beautiful sentences and brilliant ideas.

Ellen Stenstrom

Graduate Student

• ekstenst@iu.edu

Ellen Stenstrom is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in Post-1945 literature and theory. Her research interests include narrative theory, trauma theory, experimental and hybrid-genre fiction, memoir and autofiction, and medical humanities, all of which play a role in her dissertation on Post-45 trauma and illness narratives that challenge the narratability of “ineffable” experiences. She holds BAs in Literature and Creative Writing from Miami University, an MA from IU, and her work has been published in OCTELA, JMMLA, and is forthcoming in the Journal of Narrative Theory (JNT) and English Language Notes (ELN). 

Jordan Strauch

Graduate Student

• jdstrauc@iu.edu

Prior to coming to IU, Jordan received his BA in English from Sonoma State University. He is an MA/PhD student specializing in theory and post-1945 American literature, particularly New Wave science fiction. He is interested in theories which investigate the construction of and relationships between the human, the nonhuman, and everything in between, including both old and new materialisms from Marx to Bennett. By reading science fictional novels, films, and performances through these lenses, his work aims to understand how the borders of the human and the other-than-human become contested ontological zones in precarious times and places. Jordan is also interested in emerging aesthetic categories which parody, disrupt, or otherwise problematize domestic senses of place such as analog horror, solarpunk, speculative ecologies, and liminal spaces. 

Emma Swidler

Graduate Student

• eswidler@iu.edu

Emma Swidler is a doctoral candidate in English Literature. Her dissertation examines the writing of British settlers in Argentina in the nineteenth century. She is interested in informal empire and its implications for how we think about nationalism and empire. Before coming to IU, Emma received her B.A. in English at Lawrence University.

Adrienne Thomas

Graduate Student

• admiharr@iu.edu

Adrienne Thomas is an English Literature Ph.D. student. Before coming to this program, she received her BA in English, with minors in history and medieval/Renaissance studies, from Hanover College and her MA in English from Indiana University - Indianapolis. She is most interested in studying early modern English drama through New Historicist and Feminist/Gender Studies lenses.

Gregory Tolliver

Graduate Student

• gretolli@iu.edu

Gregory Tolliver is a doctoral candidate in English Literature. His dissertation explores relationships between nature, "kynde," and sexuality in Late Middle English poetry. Gregory's research interests include courtly and devotional poetry, ecocriticism, literary space/time, and queer theory.

Colby Townsend

Graduate Student

• colbtown@iu.edu

Colby is a dual PhD student in English and religious studies specializing in transatlantic literature and religion of the long eighteenth century. He received two honors BA degrees in comparative literature and religious studies from the University of Utah, an MA degree in history at Utah State University, and an MA in English at IU Bloomington.

His work explores the development of biblical studies from the Early Modern Period to the present and the ways that the Bible, religion, politics, and society influence the production of new literature. He is deeply interested in the ways that readers engage with their texts as material objects. This has led him to analyze the texts of early American religious groups, like Mormonism, in the context of the development of the critical study of the Bible, the development of the novel, and the print culture of the long eighteenth century in both Great Britain and North America. 

Mary Mac Trammell

• mmtramme@iu.edu

Mary Mac Trammell is a Literature Ph.D. student studying Victorian literature and culture. Her primary interests include fin-de-siècle literature, Victorian Gothic, and the supernatural. Mary Mac’s current research focuses on the function of anachronistic temporalities and spectrality in Victorian literature, specifically exploring the abstraction and disembodiment of identity created by anachronistic temporalities and how this disrupts and destabilizes notions of identity and identity categories that were central to Victorian culture. Before attending Indiana University, she completed her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature at the University of Alabama.

Megan Vinson

Graduate Student

• mevinson@iu.edu

Adam Williams

• daw15@iu.edu

Adam Williams is a Literature PhD student who is primarily interested in early modern drama, politics, and poetics. Particularly, his recent work has approached medieval and early modern texts through lenses of rhetorical theory, medical humanities, and ecocriticism. Before coming to IU, Adam earned a BA in English and Communications and an MA in English Literature from the University of West Florida.

Ava Wladar

Graduate Student

• awladar@iu.edu

Benjamin Yusen

Graduate Student

• byusen@iu.edu

Frank Zhong

Graduate Student

• yuzhong@iu.edu

Frank Zhong is a PhD student in Literature, specializing in Victorian studies. He is interested in 19th-century science studies, particularly how science and technology intersect with literature, and how discoveries and inventions circulated between the metropole and colonies within the British Empire. Prior to attending IU, Frank earned his BA in English from Haverford College and worked as a translator for documentary series.

Yuanrui Xu

Graduate Student

• yxu5@iu.edu

Montgomery Quaid Adams

Graduate Student

• mqadams@iu.edu

Quaid Adams is a PhD student of Rhetoric and Composition and is also pursuing an MA in Folklore and Ethnomusicology here at IUB. He received his BA in Secondary English Education and Folklore/Mythology from the University of Kentucky, and an MA in English from the University of Louisville. His research interests lie at the intersection of Rhetoric and Folklore concentrating on “otherness,” ethnography, and the role legend plays in our construction of time/space and our relationship to the world around us. Along these same lines, Quaid is also interested in Composition Studies and how ethnography and folklore can be used as an incredibly impactful resource within the writing classroom, particularly in first year writing courses.  

Anam Ikhtiar

Graduate Student

• aikhtiar@iu.edu

Elise Baker

• clelbake@iu.edu

AC Carlson

Graduate Student

• anlcarl@iu.edu

AC Carlson is a Ph.D. student in Rhetoric. Before coming to IU, they earned a BA in English, a BA in Theatre, and an MA in English Literature from Northern Arizona University. AC's scholarly interests can be found at the complex intersection of rhetoric, media, and culture. Pedagogically, AC is interested in multi-modal composition and gamification in the classroom. Their current work focuses on discourses around outer space and how imaginings of the future shape practices. AC has previously examined questions of circulation in media ecologies, and they have a creative as well as academic interest in podcasting and audio fiction. When they are not working, AC enjoys video games, looking at trees, and playing with their cat, Geoff. 

Kaylie Fougerousse

Graduate Student

• kefouger@iu.edu

Jaden Goldfain

Joanna Gordon

• jorgordo@iu.edu

Joanna Gordon is a PhD student in Rhetoric & Composition. Originally from Honolulu, Hawai'i, she received her BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and an MFA in Poetry from Western Washington University. Though she's a creative writer by trade, her research interests have turned towards decolonial rhetorics, writing pedagogy, research methodologies, place-based studies, and Pacific Islander and Hawaiian studies. Her creative work has been published with The Shore, Cherry Tree, Nimrod International Journal, Bamboo Ridge Press, and more.

Eryn Johnson

Graduate Student

• erynjohn@iu.edu

Eryn is a PhD student studying rhetoric and composition. She came to IU with a background in literary studies and communication studies. Eryn’s current research interests include the intersection of rhetoric and ethics as it comes to bear upon the narrative paradigm (and vice versa) and the role that ethics plays in rhetoric as a teaching tradition. ​ 

Lauren Keeley

• mlkeeley@iu.edu

Lauren is a PhD student in rhetoric. She is interested in the ontological poetics of rhetoric and composition in ancient Greece, the Presocratics, and the place of rhetoric in Martin Heidegger's phenomenology. She also loves creative nonfiction writing and french.

Chad Kuehn

Graduate Student

• ctkuehn@iu.edu

Chad comes to Indiana University from St. Cloud State University in central Minnesota where he earned M.A. degrees in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), and in Writing Studies and Rhetoric, and where he taught as an adjunct in the English for Academic Purposes program. Chad is currently an English PhD student with a concentration in Rhetoric. He is interested in discourses of privilege and how they shape agency in hegemonic relationships. He aspires to effect change in how all parties more generously engage in conversations of privilege, and its dismantling. 

Raquel Arias Labrador

• rsariasl@iu.edu

Sarah Lawler

Graduate Student

• salawler@iu.edu

Peyton Lunzer

Graduate Student

• pllunzer@iu.edu

Peyton is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric interested in life writing, ecocomposition, and blended scholarship. Her dissertation, “Stories We Call Home,” uses ecological thinking and life writing practices to build pedagogy grounded in personal stories. She teaches classes about place, wilderness, climate writing, identity, and global stories. Peyton currently lives in Laramie, Wyoming. 

Max Majak

Graduate Student

• mmajak@iu.edu

Max is an M.A./Ph.D. student in Rhetoric. His research interests center around "masculinist rhetoric," which comprises and connects the manosphere, rhetorical tradition, martial arts, digital rhetoric, performance studies, and New Media.

Chaim McNamee

Graduate Student

• mcnameek@iu.edu

Chaim McNamee (he/him, they/them) is a PhD candidate in rhetoric. His dissertation, "Skin-Tight Rhetorics," works at the intersection of disability studies and rhetoric to examine how contemporary epideictic rhetorics constitute normative subjects in ways that extend bio- and necropolitical power across bodies. His other research interests include rhetorical new materialism (RNM), rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM), and critical animal studies. Any time he does not spend writing and researching is dedicated to cooking, tattooing, and being a full-time dad to two beautiful kitties.

Jason Michálek

Graduate Student

• jasomich@iu.edu

Jason Michálek entered IU’s doctoral program in rhetoric in the fall of 2018. His research interests have been historically broad with a BA in English language & literature and linguistics from Grand Valley State University, and an MA in American Studies from The George Washington University. His dissertation project takes up a local controversy concerning transient residents without residence as a foundation for troubling rhetorics of belonging and alienation. In order to practice his focus on community-engaged rhetorics, he has also been found "doing rhetoric" by serving on the Community Advisory on Public Safety, as co-chair of the Homelessness Task Force at the Unitarian Universalist church of Bloomington, and as Vice President of Stonewall Democrats of South Central Indiana among Others.

Jamal Patterson

Graduate Student

• Jamapatt@iu.edu

S. Fain Riopelle

Graduate Student

• sriopell@iu.edu

Fain Riopelle is a Ph.D. student in the Rhetoric path, coming from an English M.A. program at the University of Virginia, and before that from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. His research focuses on cognitive theories of composition and the implications of such theories for the ways we teach writing, especially at the first-year college level. He is particularly interested in the dispositions and habits of mind that students bring to the writing process, and in bringing the research of cognitive science to bear on the matter of how students think about what writing is and how it works. Also, his last name is pronounced "Ree-oh-pell." 

Kelsey Taylor Alexander

Graduate Student

• krt3@iu.edu

Kelsey Taylor Alexander is an English PhD candidate in Rhetoric with a minor in Cultural Studies. She received her MA in English from the University of Georgia in 2020, culminating in her thesis exploring the commodification of exigencies in the neoliberal era. Her current research interests revolve around rhetorical economies, specifically the ways our notions of a neoliberal work ethic evolve in reaction to dominant ideologies in times of sociopolitical and economic crises. She is also interested in social movement rhetorics through an interdisciplinary analysis of communication and the economy.

Liz Thomae

Graduate Student

• lthomae@iu.edu

Liz Thomae is a third year PhD student in rhetoric and composition. Her primary research interest is religious rhetoric, specifically looking at the literate practices of the American evangelical church within the frameworks of vernacular/local literacies and literacy sponsorship. She also dabbles in popular culture scholarship, exploring how popular culture can be used in the composition classroom. She holds two BAs from Purdue University and a MA from St. Johns University. In her free time, Liz likes to eat copious amounts of ice cream, snuggle her French bull dog Mackey, and binge cheesy romance audiobooks.

Joseph Vuletich

Graduate Student

• jvuleti@iu.edu

Joe Vuletich is a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, Bloomington. Broadly interested in the rhetoric of science and technology, his dissertation focuses on how reproductive technologies shape our perceptions of ourselves and others as witnesses. When he’s not writing, he enjoys teaching composition and ethics at the Colorado School of Mines and hiking, biking, and camping with his wife and son.

Corey Baron

Graduate Student

• cobaron@iu.edu

Corey Baron is a first year M.F.A. candidate in Poetry. He previously earned his B.S. in Media, Culture and Communication from New York University. His work has been published by Muzzle Magazine, The Adroit Journal, and The Academy of American Poets. Corey writes poems and essays that ask questions about the carceral state, racial and gendered violence, kinship ties, tenderness, and masculinity. 

Carolena Fernandez Brazfield

Graduate Student

• cibrazfi@iu.edu

Carolena Fernandez Brazfield is a queer Latina poet who calls many places home, though she admittedly feels most homesick for Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2023, she received her BA in Professional and Creative Writing from Goucher College, where she was a Kratz Fellowship Recipient, studied as a Visiting Student at the University of Oxford, and served as Poetry Editor for Preface Literary Magazine. She writes mostly about about chronic illness, spiders killing their mates, the women she loves, and gossip.

Sean Bugg

Graduate Student

• sbugg@iu.edu

Sean Bugg is a poet from Virginia. He writes (mostly) about desire, pop-culture, and queerness-at-large. And occasionally the divine. Sean is deeply interested in the intersections of cinema and poetry. He holds a B.A. in English Language & Literature — Poetry Writing from the University of Virginia and an M.Ed. in Secondary Education (Humanities) from Grand Canyon University. Prior to enrolling at IU, Sean taught secondary English at a rural Virginia high school. When he's not writing, he's often in cave-mode watching any number of sci-fi/fantasy series/movies. He has been published in Assaracus No. 28, New River Journal Iss. L, Screen Door Review Iss. 23, & elsewhere. You can follow him on Instagram (@homofarben). 

Diego Díaz

Graduate Student

• dndiaz@iu.edu

Diego Díazis a fiction writer from San Antonio, Texas. He received a B.A. In English with a certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at Austin in 2023, where he was a recipient of the Roy Crane Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Literary Arts in 2021 and served as the fiction editor for the literary journal Hothouse. Díaz's stories center the places he has called home in South Texas, along with the families and individuals that comprise them.

Alex Dodt

Graduate Student

• alexdodt@iu.edu

Alex Dodt is working on a book of poems about siblinghood, punk rock, God, and grief. His poems, stories, and essays can be found in Florida Review, Emerson Review, Ghost City Review (he loves a good Review), and others, which he begrudgingly logs on to social media to share @alexisapoet. He founded Grief Commune, a magazine about the politics of collective grief, which published its first issue in 2025.

Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez

Graduate Student

• pgilordo@iu.edu

Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez is a Mexican-Spanish-American poet born and raised in Washington, D.C. She holds a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University. Her writing has appeared in ONLY POEMS, trampset, HAD, and X-R-A-Y, among other publications. She is a recipient of the Periplus Fellowship, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Paula likes to write about ordinary moments that turn strange under scrutiny. She is interested in the slippage between grief and humor, intimacy and performance, often tracing the body as a site of desire, memory, and myth.

Aaron Gordon

Graduate Student

• aarogord@iu.edu

Aaron Gordon is a Southern writer and M.F.A. candidate in Fiction from Murray, Kentucky. He attained his B.A. from Murray State University, where he was a recipient of the university's Presidential Fellowship, and served as a Staff Reader for Broad Ripple Review. His work explores memory, America and the American South, the body, and the incorporeality of trauma.

Julia Grunes

Graduate Student

• jhgrunes@iu.edu

Julia Grunes is an M.F.A. candidate in fiction from Monroe, New York. She earned her B.A. in Psychology and English (Creative Writing) from SUNY Geneseo, where she served as Managing Editor of Gandy Dancer, the only SUNY-wide literary magazine. After graduating, she worked at IE University in Madrid, Spain through a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, and then spent two years working as Boston University's Jewish Life Fellow. Julia's writing explores queerness, Jewish mysticism, and memory, especially in the aftermath of violent events. Her stories and essays can be found in Fabula Press, Iris Magazine, ELJ Editions' Manna Songs, and elsewhere.

Alexandra Janku

Graduate Student

• ajanku@iu.edu

Alexandra Janku studied history and Spanish at UCLA. She is an M.F.A. candidate in fiction.

Grace Jewell

Graduate Student

• gajewell@iu.edu

Grace Jewell is a poet from Southern Indiana. She writes about the body, nature, language, and vulnerability. She takes inspiration from moments of physical and emotional contact that form a “we.”

Joel Kemegue

Graduate Student

• jkemegue@iu.edu

Joel Kemegue is a writer from Bellevue, Washington with a B.A. in English from Washington State University. He is a former WSU Campus Civic Poet and a Cave Canem Fellow. His work explores masculinity, race, religion, generational trauma, and community. He loves reading, cinnamon rolls, watching bad movies, and complaining about nonsense. 

Yean Kim

Graduate Student

• yk123@iu.edu

Roey Leonardi

Graduate Student

• roeyleon@iu.edu

John Lyons

Graduate Student

• johnlyon@iu.edu

John Lyons is a prose writer from New Berlin, Wisconsin. After completing his B.A. in English and Creative Writing at the University of Iowa, John received an Ed.M. from Harvard's Graduate School of Education. His writing explores uncertainty, doubt, the unknown, and mystery—among other things! 

Miranda McCoy

Graduate Student

• mirmccoy@iu.edu

Miranda McCoy is a Poetry M.F.A. candidate from western Pennsylvania. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing and a B.S in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. She also earned a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. Prior to coming to Indiana University, she worked as an engineer in the fields of aerospace, food science, and nuclear safety. Her work explores the intersections of industry, gender, family, Northern Appalachia and the Rust Belt, landscape, and ecological damage.

Monica McDonough

Graduate Student

• monimcdo@iu.edu

Monica McDonough is an M.F.A. candidate in fiction from Rocky River, Ohio. She earned her B.A. in English and a Certificate in Journalism from Yale University. Her writing explores topics including the Midwest, belonging, religion, childhood, and what it means to grow up. Monica’s humor writing appears in The New Yorker.

Cheyenne McGuire

Graduate Student

• cheymcgu@iu.edu

Cheyenne McGuire is a poet from rural Colorado. She received two Bachelor of Arts degrees in English Creative Writing and English Secondary Education from the University of Iowa. Her work focuses on transformations and has been featured in The Atlantic and Body Odyssey: An Anthology.

Kenny Mitchell

Graduate Student

• kemitc@iu.edu

Kenny Mitchell (he/him) is a gay cross-genre writer and teacher from Nebraska. He holds a B.A.Ed. in English Language Arts from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. He is an MFA student in fiction writing and an assistant director of composition. While at IU, Kenny has also served as the fiction editor for Indiana Review and an instructor with the IU Prison Arts Initiative. Kenny's fiction writing applies techniques from magical realism, surrealism, and horror to engage with topics surrounding mental illness, sexuality, religious dogma, caretaking, embodiment, and the overlap of pain and pleasure. His work appears or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Booth, HAD, Milk Candy Review, The Good Life Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Airgonaut, and elsewhere. 

Al Neal

Graduate Student

Al Neal is a fiction writer from Bloomington, Indiana. They earned their B.A. in English and Media at Indiana University. Their writing explores queer coming of age, fandom & pop culture, mental illness, and repressed Midwestern families. They are a collage artist, DIY publications enthusiast, and 1970s/80s sitcoms and cult cinema fan. 

Chandra K. Panjiyar

Graduate Student

• cpanjiya@iu.edu

Chandra K. Panjiyar is a writer from Nepal. He did his undergraduate from Middlebury College with a major in Physics and a minor in English language. He was awarded fellowship to attend Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 2023. His short stories have appeared in several papers in Nepal, including The Kathmandu Post and the Republica. His writing explores the ineffable beauty of human existence, especially through humbling portrayal of the life of the people living in the Himalayas.

Olivia Ramirez

Graduate Student

• olimrami@iu.edu

Olivia Ramirez is a fiction writer from Bettendorf, Iowa. She received her B.A. in English and creative writing from the University of Iowa in 2026. Her work explores grief in all its intricacies, the Midwest’s distinct brand of ennui, and the people she meets on public transportation. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, gardening, crafting, or waiting for Discount Tuesday at the nearest movie theater.

Mollika Jai Singh

Graduate Student

• mjsingh@iu.edu

Mollika Jai Singh is a writer from San Diego, California and Montgomery County, Maryland who writes about families, identity, gods, and distance. They are the winner of the 2026 Vera Meyer Strube Poetry Prize, jointly awarded by Indiana University and the Academy of American Poets. Mollika earned a Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies and certificates in South Asian Studies and Creative Writing at Princeton University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Swim Press, MORIA, poets.org, and elsewhere. 

William E. Smith III

Graduate Student

• wsmithii@iu.edu

William E. Smith III is a M.F.A. candidate in poetry. Will was born in Honolulu, but spent much of his childhood in New England (after stints in Scotland and California). He holds a B.A. in History from Albright College, a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard University, and a PhD in Religious Studies with a doctoral minor in English from IU Bloomington. In his writing, he explores, among other things, how the body can go awry in interesting ways, forms of relationality, and the uses of myth and religion to think through experience. He enjoys spending time with his dog Buddy, hiking, seeing wildlife, and the occasional good game of cribbage.

Yvanna Vien Tica

Graduate Student

• ytica@iu.edu

Yvanna Vien Tica is a hearing-impaired Filipina writer who grew up in Manila and near Chicago. A graduate of Yale University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, she has published work in Poetry, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, and Shenandoah, among others. She writes almost obsessively about historical inheritance, memory, migration, and faith, and aspires to tweet more @yvannavien. In whatever spare time she has, she can be found playing card games with loved ones, catching up on text exchanges, and thanking God for another day.

Santiago Valencia

Graduate Student

• svalenc@iu.edu

Santiago Valencia is a Mexican poet, editor, and spiritual worker. They received a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Reed College, where their poetry was recognized by the Academy of American Poets. Their work develops a poetics of ritual and gnosis to explore queer embodiment, fractured ancestries, faith and mysticism, soul loss and retrieval, dreams, and death. They believe language is an alchemical tool for connecting with the sacred all around and within us, and for recovering lost enchantment. A Tin House Workshop and SAFTA alum, Santi is an Editor-at-Large for Nightboat Books. 

Madeline Vonk

Graduate Student

• mvonk@iu.edu

Madeline Vonk is an M.F.A. fiction writer from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She holds a B.A. in both English and Spanish from Kenyon College. During her time at Kenyon, she played an integral role in digitizing The Kenyon Review’s archive and was a member of the one and only improv team, Fools on the Hill. Madeline spent the years between Kenyon and IU as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Madrid, Spain. Her writing explores girlhood, coming-of-age narratives, and Midwestern landscapes. In her free time, Madeline loves a good reality TV binge and indie radio. Sometimes, she likes to post little essays here.