Department of English
Chair and Staff
Kerry Neville
Interim Co-Chair and Associate Professor, Coordinator of MFA and Undergraduate Creative Writing Program
3-27 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-4018
Education
Ph.D, Creative Writing, University of Houston
Biography
Dr. Kerry B. Neville is Associate Professor of Fiction and Nonfiction Writing. She is the author of two collections of stories, Necessary Lies, which received the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize in Fiction and was named a ForeWord Magazine Short Story Book of the Year, and Remember to Forget Me. Her memoir, Momma May Be Mad, is forthcoming in 2025. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, Triquarterly, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. Her fiction and nonfiction have been named Notables in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. She is a nonfiction editor for Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature. In 2018, she was a Fulbright Fellow at University of Limerick in Ireland, where she was Visiting Faculty in the MA in Creative Writing Program.
Dr. Sunita Manian
Interim Co-Chair, English, Chair of Philosophy and Liberal Studies
Beeson 337
(478) 445-2283
Courses/Topics
Gender and Sexuality in South Asia; Muslims in Europe; North Africans in France; Gender and Development; Multicultural Britain; Women and Economic Development; Ethics of Global Inequalities; Colonialism and Neo-colonialism; Global Economic Crisis and Future of the Euro.
Biography
Dr. Sunita Manian has a PhD in Economics and specializes in issues of Gender in South Asia. Her publications relate to gender and sexuality in South Asia, migration and diasporic dislocation in Europe, sex trafficking between the Maghreb and Europe, and most recently her book HIV/AIDS in India: Voices from the Margins (Routledge). She is currently the Chair for the department of Philosophy and Liberal Studies.
Melinda Martin
Administrative Assistant
3-03 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-4581
Nancy Fullilove
Part-time Administrative Assistant, Graduate Programs in English
3-29 Arts & Sciences
(478) 445-3509
Faculty
Education
M.A., English Education, Georgia College & State University
Biography
Professor Nancy Beasley earned her M.A. in English Education from Georgia College & State University. She teaches composition, world literature and utopian/dystopian worlds.
Education
Ph.D, English, The Ohio State University
Website
alexeblazer.com
Biography
Dr. Alex E. Blazer specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first century American literature and critical theory. His publications include I Am Otherwise: The Romance between Poetry and Theory after the Death of the Subject; articles on contemporary American authors Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and Chuck Palahniuk; and an article on the cult film Donnie Darko. He teaches modern and contemporary American literature, film, poetry, critical theory survey, focused studies in literary criticism (existentialism and phenomenology, reader-response criticism, Marxist criticism, psychoanalytic film theory), global horror film, and science fiction and philosophy.
Randall Bonser
Limited-Term Lecturer
3-18 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-1188
Education
MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, Hamline University
Biography
Randall Bonser earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University in Minnesota. He is the author of several children's books, including "Comics, Graphic Novels and Manga: The Ultimate Teen Guide." He teaches first year composition at GCSU.
Joy Bracewell
Director of the Writing Center and Assistant Professor
2-56 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-8724
Education
Ph.D., English, University of Georgia
Biography
Dr. Joy Bracewell earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia. In addition to being the Director of the Writing Center, she teaches composition and first-year composition practices.
Craig Callender
Associate Professor
3-17 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-3178
Education
Ph.D, Linguistics, University of South Carolina
Biography
Dr. Craig Callender is a historical linguist and phonologist who works on Germanic languages, including English. He regularly teaches History of the English Language, Medieval English Literature (Middle English), Human Language, Structure of Present-Day English, and World Literature. His research is primarily on the evolution of sound systems in Germanic languages, where he is interested in how comparative dialectology can aid in the reconstruction of historical processes. He also co-directs the European Council Summer Study-Abroad Program in Berlin, and is always happy to discuss study abroad (in Berlin and elsewhere) with interested students.
Benjamin Elliott
Limited-Term Lecturer
3-12 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-8733
Education
M.A. English Literature, Valdosta State University
Biography
Benjamin Elliott earned a Masters of Arts in English Literature from Valdosta State University in 2022. He teaches first year composition. Previously, he has edited for research journals Study and Practice of Undergraduate Research and Omnino. Research interests include multimodality, composition in a post-A.I. world, Jungian analysis, and science fiction. Most recently, he published “‘A Fountain by Another Name’: Communication Breakdown, Language, and Meaning in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” for the Journal of the Georgia Philological Association’s 2022-23 Volume.
Kerry James Evans
Assistant Professor
3-10 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-3176
Education
Ph.D. in English, Florida State University
M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Southern Illinois University - Carbondale
B.A. in English, Missouri State University
Biography
Dr. Kerry James Evans is the author of the poetry collection, Bangalore, a Lannan Literary Selection. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from Sewanee Writers' Conference, and he has taught poetry workshops, poetic forms and theory, and other courses at Florida State University and at Tuskegee University, where he was an Assistant Professor. His poems have appeared in Agni, Narrative, Ploughshares, and other journals.
Jennifer Flaherty
Professor, MA Coordinator and Literature Coordinator
3-22 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-3180
Education
Ph.D, English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Biography
Dr. Jennifer Flaherty received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Professor of Shakespeare studies, and her research emphasizes appropriation and global Shakespeare. Her work has been published in journals such as Borrowers and Lenders, Comparative Drama, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, and Topic. She has also contributed chapters to the volumes The Horse as Cultural Icon and Shakespeare and Millennial Fiction. Dr. Flaherty regularly teaches courses in Renaissance literature, dramatic literature, film studies, adaptation, Milton, and Shakespeare for the Literature program. She also teaches courses for Women's Studies, GC1Y and GC2Y, and the Georgia College Honors College.
Education
Ph.D, English, University of Texas
Biography
Dr. Bruce Gentry, Editor of the Flannery O’Connor Review, received GC’s Excellence in Scholarship award in 2013. He is the author of Flannery O'Connor's Religion of the Grotesque, editor of The Cartoons of Flannery O'Connor at Georgia College, and co-editor of the oral history At Home with Flannery O'Connor. Gentry has served three times as co-director for NEH Summer Institutes on O'Connor, most recently in 2023. Other publications by Gentry include Better to See You With: Perspectives on Flannery O'Connor, Selected and New, with Mercer UP, 2022. Along with Katie Simon and Kerry Neville, Gentry is on the Organizing Committee for the conference honoring Flannery O'Connor's 100th birthday at a conference scheduled September 12-15, 2024, entitled "Flannery O'Connor's Second Century: Looking Forward, Looking Back." (see gcsu.edu/oconnorinstitute for details)
Education
Ph.D., English, University of California, Los Angeles
Biography
Dr. Julian Knox earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. His teaching and research interests include British and Global Romanticism, literature and visual culture, Romanticism and popular music, children’s literature, theories and practices of translation, and the philosophy of time. He has published articles in the journals European Romantic Review, The Wordsworth Circle, The Coleridge Bulletin, Grave Notes, and The New German Review, and has contributed chapters to The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Memory in German Romanticism, Rock and Romanticism, and David Bowie and Romanticism. He is co-editor of the forthcoming essay collection Romanticism and Heavy Metal.
Roberto S. León
Assistant Professor
3-11 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-8157
Education
Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland College Park
Biography
Dr. Roberto León earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland College Park. His teaching and research interests include theories and histories of rhetoric and composition, comparative rhetoric, technical and professional writing, second language writing, writing program administration, writing across the curriculum, religious rhetorics, and argumentation.
Kathryn Livingston
Limited-Term Lecturer
3-20 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-8595
Education
M.A. in English Language & Literature, Georgia College & State University
Biography
Kathryn Livingston earned her M.A. in English Language & Literature from Georgia College & State University. She specializes in English as a Second Language, international education, and composition. Her debut novel Epoch was published in May 2023.
Jeffrey H. MacLachlan
Senior Lecturer
3-09 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-5571
Education
M.F.A, Fiction, Chatham University
Biography
Mr. Jeffrey MacLachlan earned an M.F.A. in Fiction from Chatham University. His work has recently been published in New Ohio Review, Eleven Eleven, and Minetta Review, among others. He teaches composition, world literature, and war literature.
Education
Ph.D, Folklore, Indiana University
Biography
Dr. Mary Magoulick teaches folklore (including courses on myths and fairy tales), Native American literature, popular culture and women's and gender studies, all with multicultural focus. She has published in The Journal of American Folklore, The Journal of Folklore Research, The Journal of Popular Culture, and more. Her book, The Goddess Myth in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture: A Feminist Critique was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2022. She has traveled or lived in over 30 countries so far, including time in the Peace Corps in Senegal and in Croatia on a Fulbright. She focuses on culturally-based approaches to studying human artistic expressions.
Kerry Neville
Interim Co-Chair and Associate Professor, Coordinator of MFA and Undergraduate Creative Writing Program
3-27 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-4018
Education
Ph.D, Creative Writing, University of Houston
Biography
Dr. Kerry B. Neville is Associate Professor of Fiction and Nonfiction Writing. She is the author of two collections of stories, Necessary Lies, which received the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize in Fiction and was named a ForeWord Magazine Short Story Book of the Year, and Remember to Forget Me. Her memoir, Momma May Be Mad, is forthcoming in 2025. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, Triquarterly, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. Her fiction and nonfiction have been named Notables in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. She is a nonfiction editor for Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature. In 2018, she was a Fulbright Fellow at University of Limerick in Ireland, where she was Visiting Faculty in the MA in Creative Writing Program.
Education
M.F.A, Creative Writing, Warren Wilson College
Biography
Professor Laura Newbern earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. She teaches intermediate poetry writing, poetry workshop, and creative writing senior seminar.
Education
M.F.A., Creative Nonfiction, Georgia College & State University
M.A., Creative Nonfiction, University of Alabama, Birmingham
Biography
James S. Owens specializes in Creative Nonfiction and the works of Flannery O'Connor. James earned his M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from Georgia College, an M.A. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and is a graduate of Auburn University. At Georgia College, he was an assistant to Dr. Bruce Gentry at the 2014 NEH Institute Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor and has participated in several O'Connor conferences such as Flannery O’Connor and Other Southern Women Writers, and James joined a roundtable called The Objects of O'Connor at SSSL’s The South in the North in Boston, MA. As well, Flannery O’Connor studies have taken James across the Atlantic to Seville, Spain where he presented "O’Connor’s Dirt" at the international conference Andalusia in Andalucía hosted by Loyola University.
Education
Ph.D., English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Biography
Dr. Profitt is a Lecturer of Film Studies in the Department of English at Georgia College. She teaches courses in global film history, classical and contemporary film theory, and gender & sexuality studies. Her research focuses on Reagan Era film history and youth-oriented media. In particular, she concentrates on popular youth films and culture in Generation X, with emphasis on delinquency and gender performance. Her work has been published by The Association for the Study of Buffy+ and Wayne State University's Popular Culture Consortium. Dr. Profitt earned a Ph.D. in English (concentration in Cinema Studies) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was twice awarded the Chancellor’s Award for excellence in English Studies, and a BA in English from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Dr. Profitt is excited to work with students interested in film, U.S. history since 1945, coming-of-age narratives, gender & sexuality, celebrity studies, and other topics in U.S. popular culture.
Emily Jane Pucker
Assistant Professor
3-08 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-5557
Education
Ph.D., University of Alabama
Education
M.F.A., Creative Writing, New School University
Biography
Peter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, two children's books, three books on the writer’s craft, and two essay collections. His memoir, The Inventors, won the 2017 Housatonic Book Award. His 2020 novel, Duplicity, won the Best Indie Book Award and the Indie Excellence Book Award. His full-length drama, A God in the House, based on Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his “suicide machine,” won the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. His novel, A Boy’s Guide to Outer Space, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in the Fall 2024.
Sidonia Serafini
Assistant Professor
3-08 Arts & Sciences Building
478-445-3181
Education
Ph.D., English, University of Georgia
Biography
Dr. Sidonia Serafini earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia. Her teaching and research interests include early African American literature, multiethnic American women’s writing, periodical studies, and public history and humanities. She co-edited The Magnificent Reverend Peter Thomas Stanford, Transatlantic Reformer and Race Man (UGA Press, 2020). Her essays have appeared in the Southern Quarterly, Women’s Studies, and the Journal of Transatlantic Studies. She is the Co-Director of Black Activism: A Transatlantic Legacy, a website that examines the imprint of Black activism in the US and the UK, past and present. She has secured grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, and her research has been recognized by the National Council on Public History.
Education
M.F.A., Creative Writing, Georgia College and State University
M.A.E., English/Language-Arts Education, The University of Alabama at Birmingham
B.A., English, Samford University
Biography
Shannon Skelton holds an MFA in fiction from Georgia College and State University and an MAE in English education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has written a collection of short stories, and her writing has been published in The Flannery O’Connor Review, Image Journal, and Ruminate Magazine. She teaches composition, literature, and creative writing, and she is currently working on creative nonfiction writing projects. Recent research and teaching interests include: writing toward health and healing, grief in literature, the essay, and the intersection of creative writing and composition pedagogies.
Education
M.F.A., Creative Writing, Georgia College & State University
M.A., English Literature, Mississippi State University
B.A., English Literature, Delta State University
Biography
Jonna Smith (they, them) earned their M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University while writing their memoir-in-hybridity Wild Animal. They teach first-year composition, including Monsters and Horror for ENGL 1102, as well as World Literature and American Literature.
Education
Ph.D, English, University of California, Berkeley
Biography
Dr. Katie Simon is an Associate Professor in the English Department and the Coordinator of the Program in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on American literature, critical theory, and the environment—with special interests in issues of social and environmental justice. Current projects include an anthology of essays on Ecocriticism and Social Justice in the U.S. South, as well as a research initiative on Race and Nature. Her articles appear in ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture; The Transparent Eye-ball; Eighteenth-Century Fiction; Women's Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal and in the anthology Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life (Pluto Press). Dr. Simon has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, and was awarded GCSU’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Education
Dr. Chika Unigwe earned her Ph.D. from the Universiteit Leiden, Holland, and her M.A. from Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium.
Biography
Dr. Unigwe's novels include On Black Sister Street (Random House, 2011) and Night Dancer (Jonathan Cape, 2012). Her debut collection of short stories, Better Never than Late (Cassava Republic), was published in 2019. Widely anthologized, she has also placed work in different journals including the New York Times, Guernica, Kenyon Review, the UK Guardian, Aeon, Wasafiri, Transition and Agni.
Emeriti Faculty
Peter Carriere
Professor Emeritus
Sarah Gordon
Professor Emerita
Marty Lammon
Professor Emeritus
David Muschell
Professor Emeritus
Eustace Palmer
Professor Emeritus
Michael Riley
Professor Emeritus
Kerry Neville
Education
Ph.D, Creative Writing, University of Houston
Biography
Dr. Kerry B. Neville is Associate Professor of Fiction and Nonfiction Writing. She is the author of two collections of stories, Necessary Lies, which received the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize in Fiction and was named a ForeWord Magazine Short Story Book of the Year, and Remember to Forget Me. Her memoir, Momma May Be Mad, is forthcoming in 2025. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, Triquarterly, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. Her fiction and nonfiction have been named Notables in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. She is a nonfiction editor for Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature. In 2018, she was a Fulbright Fellow at University of Limerick in Ireland, where she was Visiting Faculty in the MA in Creative Writing Program.
Dr. Sunita Manian
Courses/Topics
Gender and Sexuality in South Asia; Muslims in Europe; North Africans in France; Gender and Development; Multicultural Britain; Women and Economic Development; Ethics of Global Inequalities; Colonialism and Neo-colonialism; Global Economic Crisis and Future of the Euro.
Biography
Dr. Sunita Manian has a PhD in Economics and specializes in issues of Gender in South Asia. Her publications relate to gender and sexuality in South Asia, migration and diasporic dislocation in Europe, sex trafficking between the Maghreb and Europe, and most recently her book HIV/AIDS in India: Voices from the Margins (Routledge). She is currently the Chair for the department of Philosophy and Liberal Studies.
Melinda Martin
Nancy Fullilove
Education
M.A., English Education, Georgia College & State University
Biography
Professor Nancy Beasley earned her M.A. in English Education from Georgia College & State University. She teaches composition, world literature and utopian/dystopian worlds.
Education
Ph.D, English, The Ohio State University
Website
alexeblazer.com
Biography
Dr. Alex E. Blazer specializes in twentieth- and twenty-first century American literature and critical theory. His publications include I Am Otherwise: The Romance between Poetry and Theory after the Death of the Subject; articles on contemporary American authors Paul Auster, Bret Easton Ellis, and Chuck Palahniuk; and an article on the cult film Donnie Darko. He teaches modern and contemporary American literature, film, poetry, critical theory survey, focused studies in literary criticism (existentialism and phenomenology, reader-response criticism, Marxist criticism, psychoanalytic film theory), global horror film, and science fiction and philosophy.
Randall Bonser
Education
MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, Hamline University
Biography
Randall Bonser earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University in Minnesota. He is the author of several children's books, including "Comics, Graphic Novels and Manga: The Ultimate Teen Guide." He teaches first year composition at GCSU.
Joy Bracewell
Education
Ph.D., English, University of Georgia
Biography
Dr. Joy Bracewell earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia. In addition to being the Director of the Writing Center, she teaches composition and first-year composition practices.
Craig Callender
Education
Ph.D, Linguistics, University of South Carolina
Biography
Dr. Craig Callender is a historical linguist and phonologist who works on Germanic languages, including English. He regularly teaches History of the English Language, Medieval English Literature (Middle English), Human Language, Structure of Present-Day English, and World Literature. His research is primarily on the evolution of sound systems in Germanic languages, where he is interested in how comparative dialectology can aid in the reconstruction of historical processes. He also co-directs the European Council Summer Study-Abroad Program in Berlin, and is always happy to discuss study abroad (in Berlin and elsewhere) with interested students.
Benjamin Elliott
Education
M.A. English Literature, Valdosta State University
Biography
Benjamin Elliott earned a Masters of Arts in English Literature from Valdosta State University in 2022. He teaches first year composition. Previously, he has edited for research journals Study and Practice of Undergraduate Research and Omnino. Research interests include multimodality, composition in a post-A.I. world, Jungian analysis, and science fiction. Most recently, he published “‘A Fountain by Another Name’: Communication Breakdown, Language, and Meaning in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” for the Journal of the Georgia Philological Association’s 2022-23 Volume.
Kerry James Evans
Education
Ph.D. in English, Florida State University
M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Southern Illinois University - Carbondale
B.A. in English, Missouri State University
Biography
Dr. Kerry James Evans is the author of the poetry collection, Bangalore, a Lannan Literary Selection. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from Sewanee Writers' Conference, and he has taught poetry workshops, poetic forms and theory, and other courses at Florida State University and at Tuskegee University, where he was an Assistant Professor. His poems have appeared in Agni, Narrative, Ploughshares, and other journals.
Jennifer Flaherty
Education
Ph.D, English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Biography
Dr. Jennifer Flaherty received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Professor of Shakespeare studies, and her research emphasizes appropriation and global Shakespeare. Her work has been published in journals such as Borrowers and Lenders, Comparative Drama, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, and Topic. She has also contributed chapters to the volumes The Horse as Cultural Icon and Shakespeare and Millennial Fiction. Dr. Flaherty regularly teaches courses in Renaissance literature, dramatic literature, film studies, adaptation, Milton, and Shakespeare for the Literature program. She also teaches courses for Women's Studies, GC1Y and GC2Y, and the Georgia College Honors College.
Education
Ph.D, English, University of Texas
Biography
Dr. Bruce Gentry, Editor of the Flannery O’Connor Review, received GC’s Excellence in Scholarship award in 2013. He is the author of Flannery O'Connor's Religion of the Grotesque, editor of The Cartoons of Flannery O'Connor at Georgia College, and co-editor of the oral history At Home with Flannery O'Connor. Gentry has served three times as co-director for NEH Summer Institutes on O'Connor, most recently in 2023. Other publications by Gentry include Better to See You With: Perspectives on Flannery O'Connor, Selected and New, with Mercer UP, 2022. Along with Katie Simon and Kerry Neville, Gentry is on the Organizing Committee for the conference honoring Flannery O'Connor's 100th birthday at a conference scheduled September 12-15, 2024, entitled "Flannery O'Connor's Second Century: Looking Forward, Looking Back." (see gcsu.edu/oconnorinstitute for details)
Education
Ph.D., English, University of California, Los Angeles
Biography
Dr. Julian Knox earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles. His teaching and research interests include British and Global Romanticism, literature and visual culture, Romanticism and popular music, children’s literature, theories and practices of translation, and the philosophy of time. He has published articles in the journals European Romantic Review, The Wordsworth Circle, The Coleridge Bulletin, Grave Notes, and The New German Review, and has contributed chapters to The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Memory in German Romanticism, Rock and Romanticism, and David Bowie and Romanticism. He is co-editor of the forthcoming essay collection Romanticism and Heavy Metal.
Roberto S. León
Education
Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland College Park
Biography
Dr. Roberto León earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland College Park. His teaching and research interests include theories and histories of rhetoric and composition, comparative rhetoric, technical and professional writing, second language writing, writing program administration, writing across the curriculum, religious rhetorics, and argumentation.
Kathryn Livingston
Education
M.A. in English Language & Literature, Georgia College & State University
Biography
Kathryn Livingston earned her M.A. in English Language & Literature from Georgia College & State University. She specializes in English as a Second Language, international education, and composition. Her debut novel Epoch was published in May 2023.
Jeffrey H. MacLachlan
Education
M.F.A, Fiction, Chatham University
Biography
Mr. Jeffrey MacLachlan earned an M.F.A. in Fiction from Chatham University. His work has recently been published in New Ohio Review, Eleven Eleven, and Minetta Review, among others. He teaches composition, world literature, and war literature.
Education
Ph.D, Folklore, Indiana University
Biography
Dr. Mary Magoulick teaches folklore (including courses on myths and fairy tales), Native American literature, popular culture and women's and gender studies, all with multicultural focus. She has published in The Journal of American Folklore, The Journal of Folklore Research, The Journal of Popular Culture, and more. Her book, The Goddess Myth in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture: A Feminist Critique was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2022. She has traveled or lived in over 30 countries so far, including time in the Peace Corps in Senegal and in Croatia on a Fulbright. She focuses on culturally-based approaches to studying human artistic expressions.
Kerry Neville
Education
Ph.D, Creative Writing, University of Houston
Biography
Dr. Kerry B. Neville is Associate Professor of Fiction and Nonfiction Writing. She is the author of two collections of stories, Necessary Lies, which received the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize in Fiction and was named a ForeWord Magazine Short Story Book of the Year, and Remember to Forget Me. Her memoir, Momma May Be Mad, is forthcoming in 2025. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, Epoch, Triquarterly, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. Her fiction and nonfiction have been named Notables in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. She is a nonfiction editor for Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature. In 2018, she was a Fulbright Fellow at University of Limerick in Ireland, where she was Visiting Faculty in the MA in Creative Writing Program.
Education
M.F.A, Creative Writing, Warren Wilson College
Biography
Professor Laura Newbern earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. She teaches intermediate poetry writing, poetry workshop, and creative writing senior seminar.
Education
M.F.A., Creative Nonfiction, Georgia College & State University
M.A., Creative Nonfiction, University of Alabama, Birmingham
Biography
James S. Owens specializes in Creative Nonfiction and the works of Flannery O'Connor. James earned his M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from Georgia College, an M.A. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and is a graduate of Auburn University. At Georgia College, he was an assistant to Dr. Bruce Gentry at the 2014 NEH Institute Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor and has participated in several O'Connor conferences such as Flannery O’Connor and Other Southern Women Writers, and James joined a roundtable called The Objects of O'Connor at SSSL’s The South in the North in Boston, MA. As well, Flannery O’Connor studies have taken James across the Atlantic to Seville, Spain where he presented "O’Connor’s Dirt" at the international conference Andalusia in Andalucía hosted by Loyola University.
Education
Ph.D., English, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Biography
Dr. Profitt is a Lecturer of Film Studies in the Department of English at Georgia College. She teaches courses in global film history, classical and contemporary film theory, and gender & sexuality studies. Her research focuses on Reagan Era film history and youth-oriented media. In particular, she concentrates on popular youth films and culture in Generation X, with emphasis on delinquency and gender performance. Her work has been published by The Association for the Study of Buffy+ and Wayne State University's Popular Culture Consortium. Dr. Profitt earned a Ph.D. in English (concentration in Cinema Studies) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was twice awarded the Chancellor’s Award for excellence in English Studies, and a BA in English from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Dr. Profitt is excited to work with students interested in film, U.S. history since 1945, coming-of-age narratives, gender & sexuality, celebrity studies, and other topics in U.S. popular culture.
Emily Jane Pucker
Education
Ph.D., University of Alabama
Education
M.F.A., Creative Writing, New School University
Biography
Peter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, two children's books, three books on the writer’s craft, and two essay collections. His memoir, The Inventors, won the 2017 Housatonic Book Award. His 2020 novel, Duplicity, won the Best Indie Book Award and the Indie Excellence Book Award. His full-length drama, A God in the House, based on Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his “suicide machine,” won the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. His novel, A Boy’s Guide to Outer Space, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in the Fall 2024.
Sidonia Serafini
Education
Ph.D., English, University of Georgia
Biography
Dr. Sidonia Serafini earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia. Her teaching and research interests include early African American literature, multiethnic American women’s writing, periodical studies, and public history and humanities. She co-edited The Magnificent Reverend Peter Thomas Stanford, Transatlantic Reformer and Race Man (UGA Press, 2020). Her essays have appeared in the Southern Quarterly, Women’s Studies, and the Journal of Transatlantic Studies. She is the Co-Director of Black Activism: A Transatlantic Legacy, a website that examines the imprint of Black activism in the US and the UK, past and present. She has secured grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, and her research has been recognized by the National Council on Public History.
Education
M.F.A., Creative Writing, Georgia College and State University
M.A.E., English/Language-Arts Education, The University of Alabama at Birmingham
B.A., English, Samford University
Biography
Shannon Skelton holds an MFA in fiction from Georgia College and State University and an MAE in English education from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has written a collection of short stories, and her writing has been published in The Flannery O’Connor Review, Image Journal, and Ruminate Magazine. She teaches composition, literature, and creative writing, and she is currently working on creative nonfiction writing projects. Recent research and teaching interests include: writing toward health and healing, grief in literature, the essay, and the intersection of creative writing and composition pedagogies.
Education
M.F.A., Creative Writing, Georgia College & State University
M.A., English Literature, Mississippi State University
B.A., English Literature, Delta State University
Biography
Jonna Smith (they, them) earned their M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University while writing their memoir-in-hybridity Wild Animal. They teach first-year composition, including Monsters and Horror for ENGL 1102, as well as World Literature and American Literature.
Education
Ph.D, English, University of California, Berkeley
Biography
Dr. Katie Simon is an Associate Professor in the English Department and the Coordinator of the Program in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on American literature, critical theory, and the environment—with special interests in issues of social and environmental justice. Current projects include an anthology of essays on Ecocriticism and Social Justice in the U.S. South, as well as a research initiative on Race and Nature. Her articles appear in ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture; The Transparent Eye-ball; Eighteenth-Century Fiction; Women's Studies: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal and in the anthology Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life (Pluto Press). Dr. Simon has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, and was awarded GCSU’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Education
Dr. Chika Unigwe earned her Ph.D. from the Universiteit Leiden, Holland, and her M.A. from Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium.
Biography
Dr. Unigwe's novels include On Black Sister Street (Random House, 2011) and Night Dancer (Jonathan Cape, 2012). Her debut collection of short stories, Better Never than Late (Cassava Republic), was published in 2019. Widely anthologized, she has also placed work in different journals including the New York Times, Guernica, Kenyon Review, the UK Guardian, Aeon, Wasafiri, Transition and Agni.
Emeriti Faculty
Peter Carriere
Professor Emeritus
Sarah Gordon
Professor Emerita
Marty Lammon
Professor Emeritus
David Muschell
Professor Emeritus
Eustace Palmer
Professor Emeritus
Michael Riley
Professor Emeritus
Peter Carriere
Sarah Gordon
Marty Lammon
David Muschell
Eustace Palmer
Michael Riley
Part-Time Lecturers
Ruby Holsenbeck
Amy Zipperer
Seth Tomko
Graduate Assistants and Teaching Fellows
Jordan Crider
Christian Gurrola
Alexis Calhoun
Emma Garcia
Sarah Neilson
Christina Faber
Kai Beck
Katelyn Moorman
Michael Sevcik
Ash Earnhardt
Noah Lorey
Isabelle Anderson
Elissa Williams
Richard Lassiter
Kay Hammond
Serena Kerkstra
Kate Goud
Olivia McDuffie
Connor Moore
Anna Durden
Ridgley Fenters
Benjamin Circle
The office for Part-Time Faculty, Graduate Assistants, and Teaching Fellows is:
Arts & Sciences 1-53, CBX 044