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)

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.

Amaris Feland Ketcham is an Associate Professor in the University of New Mexico’s Honors College. As a writer and artist, Amaris explores the combination of text, image, and place. She has written two poetry books, A Poetic Inventory of the Sandia Mountains and Glitches in the FBI; a camping guide to New Mexico, Best Tent Camping: New Mexico; and a graphic novel, Unfiltered: A Cancer Year Diary. Her work with Poetic Routes, in interactive poetic cartography of Albuquerque, has been adopted by the Albuquerque City Planning Department, as a way to use poetry as a means of understanding neighborhoods and community character throughout town.

Amaris is the Faculty Advisor for the nationally acclaimed arts and literature magazine Scribendi, which has won the Associated Collegiate Press’s Pacemaker Award twice under her mentorship. In addition to teaching the ins and outs of literary publishing, she teaches nonfiction and poetry comics, narrative journalism, handmade books and zines, and creative placemaking. She has painted murals throughout Albuquerque, acted in a radio drama about the Badlands National Park, and taken students on multi-week camping trips along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Amaris is currently the Chair of the Student Publications Board and is an Artist-in-Medicine with the University of New Mexico Cancer Center.

Here’s what Amaris had to say about her time in the program:

“At EWU, I was allowed to explore both my creativity and professional possibilities. Even though I was not a TA, the work I do now as a professor is directly linked to my work on Willow Springs, with Writers in the Community, and my coursework in the MFA program.”

Check out more of her work on her website: www.amarisketcham.com