Grad Alumni | Department of English

Grad Alumni

Kimberly Garza graduated with a PhD from the UNT English program in 2019, specializing in Creative Writing (fiction and nonfiction) and Mexican-American literature. Her stories and essays have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in journals like Copper Nickel, Diagram, Creative Nonfiction, TriQuarterly, Bennington Review, Puerto del Sol, Huizache, and Cutbank, and she is currently at work on a book of linked short stories centering on Galveston Island. A lover of writing and reading fiction all her life, she previously worked in journalism as a magazine writer and editor. That background in research-driven nonfiction shaped much of her writing process, as has working with hard-news deadlines--or procrastinating until deadlines, really. Her work draws on themes of place--specifically her native Texas and the many regions in the state she has called home--and the blend of Mexican-American and Filipino cultures that make up her heritage. Kim grew up in Uvalde, Texas, just an hour from the U.S.-Mexico border, and earned an M.A. and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is now an assistant professor of English at the University of Texas-San Antonio, because Texas seems determined never to let her leave.

Clinton Crockett Peters is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Berry College, which boasts the largest college campus in the world. He is the author of Pandora's Garden (2018), a finalist for the ASLE Book Award, and Mountain Madness (2021), both from the University of Georgia Press. His writing appears in Best American Essays 2020, Orion, The Southern Review, Hotel Amerika, Oxford American, Fourth Genre, Catapult, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. He has won writing awards from The Iowa Review, Shenandoah, North American Review, Crab Orchard Review, Columbia Journal, and the Society for Professional Journalists. He holds an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow, and a PhD in English and creative writing at the University of North Texas, where he was a Dissertation-Year Fellow. In previous lives, he was an English teacher in Kosuge Village, Japan (population 900), an outdoor wilderness guide, and a radio DJ.

Virginia Lee Wood holds a Doctorate from the University of North Texas in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, and an MFA from Hollins University. Her stories and essays appear or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Hobart, Cutbank, The Minnesota Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere, and she recently presented the panel: "Representation & Responsibility: Who Are We Responsible For?" at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in San Antonio. She is working on a novel reckoning with grief, queerness, culture, and forgiveness. She is the Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Austin College.