Melissa Rhoades earned an MFA in 2003. Her poems have been published in Redactions, Coal City Review, Nerve Cowboy, and other journals. Her poem “Dutch East India Company” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2003, and is featured in SUNY Open Textbooks’ Naming the Unnameable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations (2018), by Michelle Bonczek Evory.

Shortly after graduating, Melissa secured a copywriting position with an online commerce company. Thanks to language skills learned through the study of poetry at EWU, Melissa’s search engine optimization (SEO) text succeeded in achieving first-page, above-the-fold organic rankings for key industry terms in Google’s search results in the 2000s and 2010s.

In the 2010s, she also dabbled in freelance SEO copywriting, freelance editing for up-and-coming writers (including Gregory Davis), and freelance copyediting (assisting in final copyedits for Jane Austen and Philosophy (2017), edited by Mimi Marinucci).

“I love my job! And I got where I am in large part thanks to the MFA Creative Writing program at Eastern Washington University. This program gave me a solid grounding not only in the art of finely crafting the written word, but also in the practical business of editing, teaching, and public speaking – skill sets that prepare students for a wide range of career options.”

Since 2016, Melissa has delighted in working at the Spokane County Library District. Among myriad other responsibilities as a fulltime Public Services Specialist, Melissa:

· Writes blog posts

· Presents weekly Storytimes that prepare the next generation for a lifetime of loving the written word

· Facilitates group Learning Circles

· Assists patrons one-on-one with reference questions

· Upholds the First Amendment right to intellectual freedom (including the right of library users to choose for themselves what books they read)

In July 2023, five current EWU MFA students in fiction – Isadora Anderson, Aimee Brooks, Dylan Cooper, Alex Farrier, and Shraya Singh – were invited to attend the Community of Writers(CoW) workshop in Olympic Valley, California along with MFA program director, Gregory Spatz, who is a regular faculty member at the writers’ conference. 

The Community of Writers was established in 1969 by novelists local to the Olympic Valley and has since hosted workshops in screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, playwriting and poetry. Many great writers have emerged from, attended, and taught at the writers’ workshop including past EWU MFA visiting writers Amy Tan, Molly Giles, and Dana Johnson.

Apart from daily workshop sessions, participants have the opportunity to attend various craft talks, panels, and readings throughout the week and interact with other writers (faculty included) in an environment that has the intimacy of a close-knit, welcoming, and friendly community. Some of the illustrious faculty for this year included the likes of Claire Vaye Watkins, Oscar Villalon, Vanessa Hua, Edan Lepucki, Héctor Tobar, Lynn Freed, and Peter Orner amidst others.

“After speaking with, Greg Spatz, director of EWU’s MFA, last summer, I knew I wanted to attend the Community of Writers. All my expectations were surpassed as I spent mornings in workshops with thoughtful, articulate individuals at varying stages of their writing careers and afternoons at panels and craft talks from established authors, literary agents, and editors. In the evenings we listened to readings from recently published or unreleased work by teachers and alumni of the workshop.

 

With New York still viewed as the primary literary hub of the United States, this workshop was influential to my perspective as a writer living in the West, having conversations with writers who view Los Angeles as an up-and-coming center for literature or who work in the isolation of rural areas. This workshop reinforced the need for community in the arts and I am incredibly grateful to an MFA that gave me the tools and support to make attending this program a possibility.” – Aimee Brooks

Every year, students from EWU’s MFA program attend CoW in July with the help of scholarships from EWU as well as scholarships offered by CoW which are based on manuscript submissions. Through the Community of Writers, participants have the unique opportunity of participating in workshops led by instructors of writing and practicing authors as well as literary editors and agents. They also engage in one-on-one sessions with other faculty members to receive feedback on their work outside of the regular workshops.

This variety in feedback from other workshop participants and active writers, editors, and agents is helpful to students in developing understanding of how their work would be received across different populations, demographics, and in the rest of the world outside the classroom setting of the MFA program.

“Community of writers was a wonderful opportunity to learn and share work with people of all kinds of literary backgrounds. My discussion with Tara Parsons (editor and publisher from HarperCollins) was one of the most helpful workshops of my own work I’ve had, especially in getting to hear perspectives outside the graduate MFA setting. I loved hearing readings and craft talks, many from writers I hadn’t known before but will eagerly read their work now. And made some cool friends along the way!” – Dylan Cooper

All the participants found the intimate environment of the workshop completely enthralling, especially because of the opportunity and ease with which workshop participants could talk to authors, ask them questions, and discuss their work after panels or over dinner!

Other highlights included the opportunity to form new connections in the literary world, discover new favorite books and authors (both published and unpublished!) and hear a great deal of amazing writers perform their “non-writerly” talents on the last day of the week-long workshop while nestled in the heart of the beautiful Olympic Valley. 

2012 graduate in fiction, Leyna Krow, has made the inland northwest her home for the past decade since moving to Spokane for her MFA. Taking her love for Spokane and its culture, geography, and weirdness in general, she has chosen this place as the setting for her debut novel Fire Season which was published by Viking Press in 2022.

In an interview with Viking, Leyna mentioned that she not only took inspiration from other Spokane-based writers who use the unique location as settings in their own work like Jess Walters and Sharma Shields, but also from authors with work that features fantastical re-imaginations of  westerns such as Karen Joy Fowler and Colin Winnette. Therefore, Fire Season is not what readers would typically expect from a novel of historical fiction but instead is something unique in its style, scope, and genre. In describing her own writing, Leyna prefers the term “fabulism” which is considered a confluence of elements from multiple genres including horror, sci-fi, and magical realism, or simply “weird”.

Fire Season focuses on the historical 1889 fire that look place in what was then known as Spokane Falls and blends elements of historical fiction, place-based fiction, and fabulism into a piece of art that cannot be contained into a single categorization. Featuring three main characters with their own personal agendas surrounding the disastrous fire — a bank manager, a career conman, and a prostitute with the ability to see into the future — the novel follows how their paths intersect as they struggle with power, control, and relationships.

This is Leyna’s second book after her short story collection I’m Fine But You Appear to Be Sinking. She also has a forthcoming collection of short stories with Viking Press which focuses on women and their relationship with power.

Leyna Krow graduated with her MFA from EWU in 2012. Her fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter, Prairie Schooner, Hayden’s Ferry Review, South Dakota Review, and other publications. She is the author of the short story collection I’m Fine, But You Appear To Be Sinking (Featherproof Books 2017) which was a Believer Book Award finalist and the novel Fire Season (Viking 2022). She lives in Spokane with her husband and two children.

More info at www.leynakrow.com.

Here’s what Leyna had to say about the program:

“I am so grateful for my time at EWU! I feel like I came to grad school at the exact right time in my writing career. I had been writing and reading a lot, but also sort of flailing around with it. Workshops and classes at Eastern helped me focus in on the sort of stories I really wanted to be writing. I met a bunch of super creative people through the program who I absolutely love having in my life. Some of best friends came out of EWU. Wouldn’t trade ’em for anything.”

Ryan Scariano is the author of two poetry collections: Not Your Happy Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Smithereens (Imperfect Press). Some of his recent poetry has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, basalt, Rock & Sling, Phantom Drift, The Oklahoma Review, and SOFTBLOW. He currently serves as an assistant poetry editor for Narrative Magazine. Ryan lives in La Grande, OR and works at Eastern Oregon University, where he directs academic support services and teaches FYE, humanities, and writing courses. Check out more at his website: www.ryanscariano.com

Here’s what Ryan had to say about his time at Eastern:

“The MFA at EWU was so important to me, something I absolutely needed in my life, and one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. The student teaching and coursework I completed during my time at EWU opened my eyes to the possibility for a career in higher education and provided me with relevant and transferable experience. I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to come to Spokane and write and learn with amazing faculty and a fun and talented group of peers.”

Maya Jewell Zeller, EWU MFA alum 2007, is the author of Rust Fish (which came out of her thesis project); Yesterday, the Bees; Alchemy for Cells & Other Beasts (a collaboration with visual artist Carrie DeBacker); and the forthcoming out takes/ glove box, chosen by Eduardo Corral for the New American Poetry Prize; she is also co-editor, with Sharma Shields, of the multi-genre anthology Evergreen: Grim Tales & Verses From the Gloomy Northwest (Scablands, 2021); and co-author of the textbook Advanced Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury UK; January 2024).

Maya’s poems and essays appear in such journals as The Rumpus,  Pleiades, Bellingham Review, West Branch, Cincinnati Review, and High Desert Journal; her memoir, “Raised by Ferns,” was runner-up in the 2022 AWP Sue Silverman Award for Creative Nonfiction. She has been a resident in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, recipient of a Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and honored with awards from Crab Orchard Review, New Ohio Review, New South, Sycamore Review, Dogwood, & elsewhere.

Maya is Associate Professor at Central Washington University, as well as Affiliate Faculty in the Poetry and Nature Writing low-residency Programs for Western Colorado University. She lives in Spokane with her children. Follow Maya on Twitter @MayaJZeller and visit her website, mayajewellzeller.com, where she posts prompts for your writing. Check out this contributor spotlight on Maya in Bellingham Review.

Here’s what Maya had to say about her time at Eastern’s program:

“The MFA from EWU (terminal degree in my field) qualified me for both positions I hold; helped me develop skills for teaching writing processes; opened avenues for editing and publishing positions, as well as offering industry know-how in writing. I simply would not have my career if it were not for my MFA from EWU.”

Read some more of Maya’s work:

“Biological Half Lives” – The James Franco Review

“Poverty Fires”– Diagram

Shann Ray grew up in Montana and spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. His work has been featured in Poetry, Narrative, Esquire, McSweeney’s, Poetry International, and Salon. Named a finalist with Ted Kooser’s Splitting an Order and Erin Belieu’s Slant Six, Ray’s debut book of poems, Balefire, won the High Plains Book Award in Poetry.

A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, he is the winner of the American Book Award, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless Prize, the High Plains Book Award in both poetry and fiction, the Western Writers of America Spur Award, the Foreword Book of the Year Readers’ Choice Award, the Subterrain Poetry Prize, the Ruminate Short Story Prize, the Crab Creek Review Fiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Inlander Short Story Prize, and the Poetry Quarterly Poetry Prize. Ray is the author of Balefire: Poems (Lost Horse), American Masculine: Stories (Graywolf), American Copper: A Novel (Unbridled), and a book of political theory, Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity (Rowman & Littlefield). A member of a group educational Fulbright grant to South Africa, and a United Nations Sustainable Development Grant titled Intercultural Dialogues through Beauty as a Language of Peace, Shann has served as a research psychologist for the Centers for Disease Control, a panelist for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and as a visiting scholar in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America. He teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University. Because of his wife and three daughters he believes in love. Learn more at shannray.com

Here’s what Shann had to say about Eastern’s MFA program:

“I hold a handful of positions now after receiving the MFA from EWU. I want to say how grateful I am for the depth of immersion the program provided into authentic, uncommon, and vital aspects of humanity, ethics, and how art invigorates, strengthens, and helps heal the heart of the world. In the MFA, I received the irrefutable gift of greater personal, communal, and artistic understanding.”

Shann currently teaches poetry for Stanford, poetry for Princeton Theological Seminary, and is a full professor of leadership studies for Gonzaga University focusing on forgiveness in the wake of genocide. He has served as a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities Panelist, and as a visiting scholar of forgiveness studies in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. He has done collaborative work with the United Nations, as well as the Centers for Disease Control, and been honored to conduct writing workshops and research in both settings, including communal work focused on intercultural dialogues through the use of beauty as a language of peace.

Read a few of Shann’s poems: “Hesperus”  and  “My Dad, in America”  from Poetry   “Ecstasy” from Narrative Magazine

Ashley Wurzbacher earned her MFA in Fiction from Eastern in 2010 and her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston in 2016. Her stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere. Her novel, How to Care for a Human Girl (Atria Books) will be published in August 2023. Her story collection, Happy Like This (University of Iowa Press) won 2019 the John Simmons Short Fiction Award and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. In 2019, she was selected by Brandon Hobson as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honorees. She is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of Montevallo, where she teaches creative writing.

Here’s what she had to say about the MFA program:

“My experience at Eastern helped me clarify my career goals. Not only did I gain invaluable teaching experience as a TA, but I also got to try out editing through an internship with Willow Springs and got nonprofit/community teaching experience through Writers in the Community. I left the program with a clear sense of my interests and abilities in all three areas. Ultimately, I determined that teaching was the right career for me, but I felt (and still feel) confident in my skill set in other writing- and teaching-adjacent fields, as well. I also felt confident in my ability to market those skills by clearly and elegantly communicating them to potential employers. The MFA program honed my critical thinking/reading skills, sharpened my communication skills, and helped me get used to giving and receiving constructive feedback. These are skills that are vital to *any* career.”

Jennifer Pullen graduated from EWU in 2012 with an MFA in Fiction, and went on to earn her PhD in Creative Writing at Ohio University. She is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio Northern University.  Her fiction and poetry have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies including: Going Down Swinging (AU), Cleaver, Phantom Drift Limited, Clockhouse, Prick of the Spindle, Gravel, Off the Coast, and Behind the Mask: Superhero Anthology (Meerkat Press).  She grew up in Eastern Washington, 45 minutes north of Spokane, and will forever associate summer with the smell of baking evergreen needles. She currently lives in Ohio with her husband and a very large and demanding orange tabby cat. She has a craft text and anthology coming out from Bloomsbury Academic, called Writing Fantasy Fiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology in Jan 2024. 

Here’s what Jennifer had to say about Eastern’s MFA program:

“EWU prepared me wonderfully for my PhD at Ohio University, one of the oldest and best creative writing PhD programs in the country, and I got a tenure track job right out of that program, and I know I couldn’t have done it without my foundation from EWU. Working at Willow Springs while at EWU also helped prepare me to advise a national student literary magazine, which is a major part of my job.”

Check our Jennifer’s work via the links above, and read her story “Once Upon a Bed Time Dreary” in Defenestration.

In celebration of our college graduates, we reached out to our seniors for a little highlight and feedback from their time at Eastern. Congratulations on getting your degree! And welcome to the Eagle Alumni Family! Go Eags!

What is your major and minor/certificate and what made you choose that major/ minor?

My majors are in philosophy and political science. My minor is in psychology. I chose to major in philosophy because I am interested in life’s biggest questions, and also because I think philosophy teaches one how to think for themselves both critically and reflectively. I chose to major in political science because it has its foundations in philosophy, and because politics plays an essential role in civil life. I chose to minor in psychology because I am fascinated with the scientific facts and questions of the human condition, and I like learning about why we do the things we do. 

What is one of your favorite memories so far in your program/at Eastern?

One of my favorite memories in my time at Eastern was presenting at the EWU Spring Symposium in 2022. I recommend participating in the symposium to all students. It’s such a great experience and provides a supportive environment that allows one to hone their presentation skills. 

What’s one class that wasn’t in your major that you’d recommend?

RCLS 301: Overview of the Craft Beer Industry.

What is your plan after graduation?

My plan after graduation is to attend graduate school for a degree in philosophy!

What was the hardest assignment you’ve had to do and how did you get through it?

The hardest assignment I’ve had to do was my culminative essay for my philosophy capstone course with Dr. Kirby. I got through it by utilizing knowledge I had gained in previous courses and by taking advantage of Professor Kirby’s guidance and mentorship.