Biography

"The mind--the culture--has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world's work. With these we try to save our very lives."
                                                                             ~Annie Dillard

Most days it's hard for me to imagine that there are other ways to fill one's days than teaching and learning. I relish the process of developing and exchanging ideas, of making meaning and art out of the written and spoken word, of immersing myself in the best words of writers and scholars from many times and places.

I completed my PhD at the University of Alberta in 1991. My dissertation deals with literary nonfiction writers Annie Dillard and Lewis Thomas. I did my first two degrees here at Andrews: a BA in English and Communication (1977) and an MA in English Literature (1978). Before returning to Andrews in 1992, I taught at Canadian University College (now Burman University) in Alberta, and Newbold College in England.

I currently teach primarily writing and performance classes in the English and Communication Departments at Andrews. I also teach in SAGES--the honors program. I have received two awards for my teaching here: The Honors Faculty of the Year, 2001-2002; and The Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1997-1998. I have published on Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, on public performance of biblical literature, and the entry on Annie Dillard in The Encyclopedia of the Essay. Current research interests include Frederick Buechner, Anne Lamott, and Virginia Woolf.

Outside of teaching I enjoy correspondence, cats, foreign films, and the care and feeding of souls and stomachs.

Current Research or Professional Activities

Peer Reviewed Publications:
"Scripture Reading Revisited: Preparing Students to Perform Biblical Literature." Journal of Adventist Education. April/May 2007:33-39

"Ritual and the Rhetoric of Repetition in Angela's Ashes." Michigan Academician 32.3 (2000): 239-97.

Additional Publications, Presentations, etc.:

Published in English Studies in Canada, Life.info, Focus, and Spectrum.

Presented papers and chaired sessions at conferences of College English Association, International Association of Philosophy and Literature, Christianity and Literature, Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, & Letters. 

Served as editorial referee for Journal of Narrative Theory, University of Wisconsin Press, and Religion and Literature.

Frequently attends Calvin College's biennial Festival of Faith and Writing.