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Associate Professor of Hispanic and Latino Studies | Hispanic and Latino Studies | palerm@plu.edu | 253-535-7756

Director of Hispanic and Latino Studies | Hispanic and Latino Studies | davidsef@plu.edu | 253-535-7311 | If I had to describe my identity with a Facebook relationship status it would read: “It’s complicated”.

Associate Director for Campus Life Operations | Residential Life | dpatel@plu.edu | 253-535-8059

Poetry | MFA in Creative Writing - Low Residency | Geffrey Davis is the author of three books of poems, most recently One Wild Word Away (BOA Editions 2024).

Fiction | MFA in Creative Writing - Low Residency | Scott Nadelson is the author of four story collections, most recently The Fourth Corner of the World; a memoir, The Next Scott Nadelson: A Life in Progress; and a novel, Between You and Me.  His stories and essays have appeared in Harvard Review, AGNI, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and Alaska Quarterly Review, and have been cited as notable in both Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays.  Winner of the Oregon Book Award, the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award, and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, he teaches at Willamette University and lives in Salem, Oregon. Mentor.

Professor of Theatre | School of Music, Theatre & Dance | smithtt@plu.edu | 253-535-7323 | Tom Smith is a playwright, director and improviser.  His plays are published by Samuel French, Playscripts, and YouthPLAYS, among others.  Monologues from his plays appear in five collections of works, and his short plays have been produced internationally.  His work has been enjoyed by audiences in cities across the U.S., including Seattle, Kansas City, San Francisco, and Chicago, as well as in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.  Tom is also the author of The Other Blocking: Teaching and Performing Improvisation(Kendall Hunt) and articles and reviews for Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, The Players Journal, and several resource books.  Tom graduated from Whitman College with a BA in Dramatic Arts and Secondary Education certification, and earned his MFA in Directing from University of Missouri-Kansas City.  He is a proud member of the Dramatist’s Guild and Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. .

Professor of Theatre | Theatre & Dance | smithtt@plu.edu | 253-535-7323 | Tom Smith is a playwright, director and improviser.  His plays are published by Samuel French, Playscripts, and YouthPLAYS, among others.  Monologues from his plays appear in five collections of works, and his short plays have been produced internationally.  His work has been enjoyed by audiences in cities across the U.S., including Seattle, Kansas City, San Francisco, and Chicago, as well as in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.  Tom is also the author of The Other Blocking: Teaching and Performing Improvisation(Kendall Hunt) and articles and reviews for Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, The Players Journal, and several resource books.  Tom graduated from Whitman College with a BA in Dramatic Arts and Secondary Education certification, and earned his MFA in Directing from University of Missouri-Kansas City.  He is a proud member of the Dramatist’s Guild and Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. .

Associate Professor of History | Department of History | hamesgl@plu.edu | 253-535-7132 | Gina Hames’ research interests focus on the historic role of how alcohol shapes identity from a comparative perspective across the globe, including Africa, Asia, including China, Japan, and India, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and the United States.

Fiction | MFA in Creative Writing - Low Residency | April Ayers Lawson is the author of Virgin and Other Stories, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The Irish Times and Vice, and a Best Foreign Book of the Year by Spain’s Qué Leer Magazine.  Virgin and Other Stories has been (or will be) translated into German, Spanish, Norwegian, and Italian.  She has received The Plimpton Prize for Fiction, as well as a writing fellowship from The Corporation of Yaddo.   Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Die Welt, ZYZZYVA, and Oxford American, among others, has been cited as notable in Best American Short Stories, featured by Huffington Post, and anthologized in The Unprofessionals: New American Writing from The Paris Review.  Her nonfiction has appeared in Der Spiegel, Granta, Vice, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung Magazine, and been named a Most Popular Read of the Year by Granta.  She has taught in the creative writing programs at Emory University and the University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and now teaches at Clemson University. Mentor.  Workshops and classes in fiction. Statement: “The most important thing your writing can be is interesting.  And by that I mean interesting to you, because when you’re deeply engaged in the process, the work sparks alive.  This level of engagement involves writing into places you didn’t expect and opening to the risk of surprise.

Nonfiction | MFA in Creative Writing - Low Residency | Wendy Call (she/her) is the co-editor of the craft anthology Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide (Penguin, 2007) and the new annual Best Literary Translations (Deep Vellum, 2024).