Alumni Updates

We post alumni notes as we receive them. Send your News to English@wm.edu

For updates received in previous years, check out the categories of class years in the left menu.

 

Kelly Ross ’01 - BA in English Her first book, Slavery, Surveillance, and Genre in Antebellum United States Literature, was published by Oxford University Press (2023). Her work has appeared in PMLA, the Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe, Leviathan, the Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Politics, and American Literature in Transition, 1820-1860. She edits Poe Studies: History, Theory, Interpretation.

 

Carolyn McBride ’87 - BA in English Published two books: The Cicada Spring and Santa Overboard.

 

Mary C Gentile ’75  - BA in English -Received her PhD in English from SUNY Buffalo in 1983. Additionally has several books have published including “Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What's Right". 

 

(Melinda) Gay Ivey ’87 - BA in English A Professor of Literacy Education at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, studying reading engagement among young people, particularly what it does for their socio-emotional and intellectual lives. Including Teens choosing to read: Fostering social, emotional, and intellectual growth through books. Teachers’ College Press 2023.Her co-author and her have also written related public pieces for The Conversation, ASCD Blog, in addition to a widely-circulated essay posted by our publisher. I also did a blurb for The Academic Minute.

Donald E. Williams - English major ‘98 In 2023 Donald’s dissertation at Duke was published as a book by Wifp and Stock publishers. The book is entitled An Investigation Into the Relationship Between Aristotelian Eudaimonia and Christian Discipleship: A Thomistic Perspective.

Emily Bludworth de Barrios ’05 - BA in English Recent books include Rich Wife (University of Wisconsin 2025), recipient of the Four Lakes Prize, and Shopping or The End of Time (University of Wisconsin 2022), winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Harvard Review, Copper Nickel, The Poetry Review, and Oxford Poetry.

 

Romana Huk ’81- BA in English Romana Huk’s books include Contemporary British Poetry: Essays in Theory and Criticism (1996), Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally (2003), Stevie Smith: Between the Lines (2005), and Rewriting the Word "God": In the Arc of Converging Lines Between Innovative Theory, Theology and Poetry (2025). 

 

Deb Heim ’82 - BA in English Her partner and her are fantasy authors and have two epic fantasy books, Argren Blue and Desulti published by Black Rose Writing and have one scheduled to be released in August 2025. 

Jean L. Kreiling, '76  - BA in English Dr.. Kreiling teaches music history, comprehensive musicianship, class piano, music fundamentals, and seminars on “Music of the Sea” and “Words and Music” at Bridgewater State University. Her publications include Shared History (2022) , Arts & Letters & Love (2018), and   The Truth in Dissonance (2014)

Kathryn Fay ’11 - BA in English ’11 Is the publisher of Modern Artist Press, a new independent press that looks to expand and explode the definition of a modern artist by publishing literary fiction. This year, the press will be publishing two short story collections by debut authors.