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Category: The Scarlet Newsletter

Professor Luke Niiler: New Director of the First-Year Writing Program

The First-Year Writing Program works with freshman to help them develop their skills as college and academic writers. At the head of this program is Professor Luke Niiler. Professor Niiler has been at the University of Alabama since 2007. Along with being the Director of the First-Year Writing Program, he also teaches English Composition 101 and 102. I had the pleasure to sit down with Professor Niiler and learn more about who he is and what he has in store […]

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Professor Amy Dayton: New Director of the Writing Center

You earned your PhD from the University of Arizona. Are you from Arizona? What brought you to Alabama? I am originally from St. Louis, Missouri. I grew up in Florissant, which is the next town over from Ferguson, which no one had ever heard of before last summer. As a college student, I studied abroad in France, and then after graduation, I went back to teach English in a high school in Nantes. After that, I moved to Arizona to […]

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Inside the Mind of Jason McCall

Jason McCall is an Instructor at The University of Alabama who works with Slash Pine Press, a poetry and mixed genre chapbook publisher. McCall has published four poetry chapbooks, including Dear Hero, which won the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press poetry prize. Tell us a little about yourself and your involvement with Slash Pine Press. I’ve been an instructor in the department since 2009. Currently, I help with organizing the annual Slash Pine Writing Festival and reading manuscripts for the poetry […]

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Laura Ezell’s A Record of Our Debts

When Laura Ezell received a call from Michael Czyzniejewski, the editor of Moon City Review, that her collection of short stories and poems, A Record of Our Debts, had won the Short Fiction Award, she was “over the moon.” The prize included publication and $1000. Ezell will perform a reading of her work at Missouri State University, home of MCP. A Record of Our Debts focuses on a few relatively isolated and fatalistic characters. The book began as her master’s […]

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Interview with Professor David Deutsch

Professor David Deutsch is an associate professor in the Department of English at The University of Alabama. Dr. Deutsch spent his undergraduate years at the University of Georgia. He received a Ph.D. at Ohio State University and is now the Director of the UA in Oxford study abroad program. Dr. Deutsch teaches American and British drama, poetry, and prose to undergraduate students. He has also recently published a book called British Literature and Classical Music: Cultural Contexts. When did you first become […]

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Spring 2016: Masthead

The Scarlet Newsletter is a production of the Department of English at The University of Alabama. “Interview with Dr. David Deutsch” By Hannah Jolly “Laura Ezell’s A Record of Our Debts” By Gabby Gattis “Inside the Mind of Jason McCall” By Dodson Seitz “Professor Amy Dayton: New Director of the Writing Center” By Elizabeth Perkinson “Professor Luke Niiler: New Director of the First-Year Writing Program” By Arletta Lerew “Professor Whiting: Educator” By Ben Nims “Interview with Andy Johnson” By Gantt Moore […]

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What We’re Reading

Paige McCormick It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a helicopter mom not in possession of her emotions must be in want of a good book.  So a couple of weeks ago as I visited my freshman daughter at Ole Miss, I stopped in at the storied establishment in downtown Oxford called Square Books, where I found a remedy for my forlorn heart: Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature. This book is a compilation of lectures that Borges gave […]

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Melissa Vaughan: Front Office Coordinator

It is always inspiring to meet someone like Melissa Vaughan who is down to earth, honest, and positive about her endeavors and experiences. I was fortunate to interview the Department of English’s Front Office Coordinator, Melissa Vaughan, who has been working for The University of Alabama for a year.  In this interview, Ms. Vaughan discusses her experiences as a college student, her position as Front Office Coordinator, and her thoughts on the importance of studying Humanities. What would you like […]

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Bethany Williams: Experiences of a Brit in ’Bama

For the vast majority of students, the opportunity to study at an enormous, diverse, and prestigious university like The University of Alabama tends to generate feelings of both unparalleled excitement and understandable anxieties. Accordingly, one might imagine that the experience of being over 4,000 miles from home, and at a college almost twice the size of one’s home institution, might heighten these feelings of apprehension. But for Bethany Williams, a confident, diligent, and sociable exchange student from Birmingham, England, her […]

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If Walls Could Talk

Since 1862, the statuesque Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion has occupied a prominent position at 1305 Greensboro Avenue in Tuscaloosa. When I first visited the mansion, I was a bit disconcerted. Despite its obvious beauty and history, the mansion’s exterior has seen better days and suggests a backdrop for an episode of Ghost Hunters, a television show that investigates paranormal activity in old buildings. At odds with the exterior is the eternally cheerful Ian Crawford, director of the Jemison-Van de Graaff […]

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