Our Ph.D. graduates in Creative Writing have gone on to a wide range of successful careers in academia, publishing, editing, and professional writing. Alumni hold tenure-track, visiting professorships, and lectureships at colleges and universities across the country and abroad, while others have built thriving careers in publishing, journalism, marketing, and the nonprofit sector. This breadth of placement reflects the strength of our program in preparing students for both scholarly and creative contributions beyond graduation.
Dr. Megan Arlett
Assistant Professor of English, Eastern New Mexico University
Dr. Brett Armes
Lecturer, Developmental Literacy, Texas Tech University
Dr. Graham Barnhart
Visiting Professor of English, Allegheny College
Dr. Rebecca Bernard
Assistant Professor of English, Angelo State University
Dr. Andy Briseno
Assistant Professor of English, Northwestern State University—Louisiana
Dr. Conor Burke
Content Manager, Narrative Magazine
Dr. Anna Chotlos
Visiting Professor of English, Ohio University
Dr. Rivka Clifton
Bradner Communications, Seattle
Dr. Courtney Craggnet
Assistant Professor of English, Weber State University
Now: Associate Professor
Dr. James Davis
Lecturer, Department of English, University of North Texas
Dr. Kara Dorris
Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Illinois College
Now: Associate Professor and Department Chair
Dr. Johnathan Duckworth
Lecturer, Department of English, University of North Texas
Dr. Stevie Edwards
Assistant Professor of Practice of English, Southern Methodist University
Now: Assistant Professor of English, Clemson University
Dr. Ryan Flanagan
Lecturer at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Dr. Kimberly Garza
Assistant Professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio
Now: Associate Professor
Dr. Vince Granata
Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing, Grand Valley State University
Dr. Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
Assistant Professor of English at Northern Kentucky University
Now: Associate Professor
Dr. Spencer Hyde
Assistant Professor of English, Brigham Young University
Now: Associate Professor
Dr. Allyson Jones
Web Content Writer, Influx Marketing
Dr. Joshua Jones
English Faculty, Grayson College
Dr. Lucas Jorgensen
Assistant Professor of English, University of South Alabama
Dr. Andrew Koch
Lecturer, Department of English, University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Elisha McCory
Assistant Dean for Student Success at Arkansas Tech
Dr. Mindadora Macheret
Herbert Fellow, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Dr. Colleen Mayo
Assistant Professor and Murphy Fellow in English, Hendrix College
Dr. Jenny Molberg
Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of Central Missouri
Now: Professor at Emerson College and Editor-in-Chief of Ploughshares
Dr. Matthew Morton
TESOL Instructor, Gymnázium Trebišov, Slovakia
Dr. AprilJo Murphy
Editor, Greenleaf Books Group, Austin, TX
Dr. Jessica Murray
Proposal Writer, Accenture
Dr. Heather Myers
Visiting Lecturer in English, Texas Christian University
Dr. Aza Pace
Visiting Assistant Professor at Ohio Wesleyan University
Dr. Sebastian Paramo
Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Austin College
Now: Lecturer at Southern Methodist University
Dr. Clinton Peters
Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Berry College
Now: Associate Professor
Dr. Travis Scott Ray
Project Manager at Texas Monthly
Dr. James Redmond
Assistant Professor at Riphah International University, Lahore
Dr. Carly Susser
Lecturer and Assistant Director of First Year Writing, University of North Texas
Dr. Sidney Thompson
Writing Consultant for the William L. Adams Center for Writing
Dr. Kendra Vanderlip
Assistant Professor of Teaching, University of Memphis
Dr. Sarah Warren
English Instructor at Garland Independent School District
Dr. Ross Wilcox
Lecturer, Assistant Director of First Year Writing, University of North Texas
Dr. Virginia Wood
Assistant Professor of English, West Chester University
Dr. Karl Zuehkle
Professor/Coordinator of English, Tyler Junior College
Poetry Collections & Chapbooks
Megan J. Arlett — The Garden Party (2026)
Graham Barnhart — The War Makes Everyone Lonely (2019)
James Davis — Club Q (2020)
Kara Dorris — Have Ruin, Will Travel (2019), When the Body Is a Guardrail (2016)
Stevie Edwards — The Weather Inside (2026), Quiet Armor (2023), Humanly (2015), Good Grief (2012)
Jenny Molberg — The Court of No Record (2023), Refusal (2020), Marvels of the Invisible (2017)
Matthew Morton — What Passes Here for Mountains (2022), Improvisation Without Accompaniment (2019)
Jessica Murray — Breakfast in Fur (2022)
Aza Pace — Her Terrible Splendor (2025)
Sebastian Paramo — Portrait of Us Burning (2023)
Novels and Story Collections
Rebecca Bernard — Our Sister Who Will Not Die (2022)
J. Andrew Briseno — Down and Out (2018)
Courtney Craggett —Tornado Season (2019)
Sanderia Faye — Mourner’s Bench (2015)
Kimberly Garza — Between You a River (2026), The Last Karankawas (2022)
Spencer Hyde — What the Other Three Don’t Know, Waiting for Fitz (2019)
Clinton Crockett Peters — Mountain Madness: Found and Lost in the Peaks of America and Japan (2021)
Sidney Thompson — Hell on the Border: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book Two (2021), Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book One (2020)
Ross Wilcox — Golden Gate Jumper Survivors Society (2020)
Memoir & Essay Collections
Vince Granata — Everything Is Fine: A Memoir (2021)
Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman — Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir (2019)
Clinton Crockett Peters — Pandora’s Garden: Kudzu, Cockroaches, and Other Misfits of Ecology (2018)
Clinton Crockett Peters — Mountain Madness: Found and Lost in the Peaks of America and Japan (2021)
Our graduate students have gone on to publish their writing in some of the nation’s most distinguished literary journals, including Agni, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, The Adroit Journal, The Arkansas International, Bellingham Review, Bennington Review, Blackbird, The Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Copper Nickel, Creative Nonfiction, Essay Daily, Five Points, Fourth Genre, The Kenyon Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, LitHub, The Massachusetts Review, The Missouri Review, New Ohio Review, Oxford American, Ploughshares, Puerto del Sol, The Rumpus, The Southern Review, The Sun, TriQuarterly, and Tupelo Quarterly.
Their work has also been selected for prestigious anthologies such as Best American Essays and Best New Poets.
In addition to their publishing accomplishments, our students and alumni have been recognized with nationally competitive awards and fellowships, including the Wallace Stegner Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Fulbright Fellowship, the Miller Williams Poetry Series, the Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize, the A. Poulin Prize, and the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize.
They have also continued their editorial work at nationally recognized journals, contributing to the literary community as editors of Ploughshares, Pleiades, Narrative Magazine, and The South Carolina Review.