English Alumni Profiles

Ava Homa (MA, 2009)

 Individual Growth

“to anyone who is looking for an encouraging, welcoming and rewarding environment to grow in”

Ava Homa is a Kurdish-Iranian-Canadian and a writer-in-exile. She holds a second MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Tehran. In 2010, TSARbooks published a collection of hershort stories, Echoes from the Other Land. Short fiction and translations have appeared in English and in Farsi journals and newspapers, including The Toronto Star andThe Windsor Review. She was a teacher, journalist, writer and a member of faculty in Iran. In Toronto, Ava is a freelance writer and teaches Creative Writing, English and ESL.

The English Department at the University of Windsor was more than a department for me. Being from the other side of the planet, an international student, I accepted the department as my new home. I found the faculty to be impressively knowledgeable, friendly, and supportive. The Masters in English and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor allowed me to come to terms with my situation as a third-language speaker and to use that as a point of strength and singularity. In the Creative Writing Seminars, I was exposed to a variety of writings and learned to read like a writer and be a critic of my own and my colleagues’ works. The Writer-in-Residence was another opportunity for me to share my writing and get professional feedback. I recommend the English Department to anyone who is looking for an encouraging, welcoming and rewarding environment to grow in.

—Ava Homa

Michael Murphy (MA, 2007)

Balanced Program

“a great balance between studying literature, on the one hand, and improving my creative writing skills on the other”

Michael Murphy lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work has been published in The Fiddlehead, The Windsor Review, and fillingStation. His first novel, A Description of the Blazing World, will be published by Freehand Books in April 2011. Michael received a BA in English from Dalhousie University. He is currently in his second year of studies at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

The University of Windsor’s Masters in Creative Writing program provided a great balance between studying literature, on the one hand, and improving my creative writing skills on the other. The collegiate atmosphere is unique and welcoming, and the professors are both approachable and knowledgeable, an all too rare combination. As a beginning writer I found plenty of opportunities to share my work and to enjoy the work of my peers, either at one of the frequent readings promoted by the English department, or in my creative writing class. The close attention and encouragement I received from my faculty advisor, Nicole Markotic, was vital to my learning experience. I was also fortunate enough to work as a research assistant, and was given the opportunity to teach two classes in Composition. These experiences all helped to enrich my learning at the university, and I would recommend studying at Windsor to anyone who wishes to become a better writer while also maintaining a serious commitment to the study of literature.

—Michael Murphy

Jenny Sampirisi (MA, 2006)

Dedicated Faculty

“an environment where I could take risks in both my creative and academic work”

Jenny Sampirisi is a poet, prose writer, instructor and editor. She is a graduate of the University of Windsor’s M.A. in creative writing program. Since then she has gone on to become the managing editor for BookThug (a weird and wonderful press) and facilitator of the online concrete poetry journal, Other Cl/utter. She teaches English at Ryerson University where she runs the Ryerson Reading Series. Most recently she has taken on the role of Associate Director of the Scream Literary Festival, a 13-day festival that showcases national and international avant garde poets and artists. She is currently a writer-in-residence with Descant Magazine's Now Hear This program. Her first novel, is/was (Insomniac 2008) explores the flexible boundaries of language, media, and the body. She’s currently at work on a collection of poetry that has something to do with amphibians, girls and limb deformities.

The University of Windsor offered an environment where I could take risks in both my creative and academic work. The courses I took pushed me to think critically about the writing process while I engaged in a wide range of amazing texts that I’d never been exposed to before. The courses went well beyond the static walls of a book or a classroom, and I had the chance to meet and interact with contemporary authors, many of whom I still maintain close friendships. By allowing me to enter a vital creative community, UWindsor encouraged me to investigate the entire process of bringing creative work into the world. Through my involvement with The Windsor Review, Rampike Magazineand the English Department Events Committee I learned how to design a book, how to curate and host events, how to perform my own work in public, how to promote books and events from the ground up, and in my M.A. years, I had the opportunity to teach composition. There is nowhere else I could have had the opportunity to try out such a variety of positions and develop a full range of skill sets in an safe and open environment. I owe many thanks to the professors at UWindsor for their encouragement and willingness to offer new avenues of thought in theory and practice. I have taken many of their ideas and energy with me as I’ve continued on in writing, organizing and teaching.

—Jenny Sampirisi

Katie Dupuis (BA Honours, English and Creative Writing, 2005)

Small Classes

“The classes were intimate and the discussions intense, the work was challenging and pushed me further than I’d expected”

Photo credit: Wandering Eye Photography

I can’t say enough good things about the English Literature and Creative Writing program at the University of Windsor. The classes were intimate and the discussions intense, the work was challenging and pushed me further than I’d expected, and though it took four years, I was eventually (mostly) broken of my overuse  of clichés. I went to school equipped with a love of books and writing, like everyone in my program, but left with a deeper appreciation of literature, a colloquial (and maybe sarcastic) voice that reflected my personality as an adult and a slightly thicker skin in the face of criticism. It was my intention, originally, to go to teachers’ college but instead I took the publishing route, leading to a job as an editor at Chatelaine magazine. The skills I acquired at Windsor have allowed me to be a regular contributor to the magazine’s pages, as both a writer and editor, and I would recommend the program to anyone who sees themselves in an editorial role. I’m still working on the thick skin, but I’m far from being an elephant. I think I only gain a few centimetres every year.

—Katie Dupuis

 Nasser Hussein (MA, 2003)

The Writer’s Perspective

“What I know about literature, I learned from the ‘inside’”

Nasser Hussain (MA, Windsor 2003, PhD, York (UK) 2008) lectures in literature and creative writing at several universities in Yorkshire. He still takes time out to write and perform new work whenever the opportunity arises, but has many distractions, including revising his doctoral dissertation on embodiment and contemporary poetry for publication, researching towards a new project on travel narratives and borders in American literature, and a book length Conceptual poem called ‘Use’.

My time at the University of Windsor was, in many ways, a turning point for me, professionally, pedagogically, and artistically. The main benefit of the Creative Writing MA was having the rare opportunity to have an extended period of time practicing as a writer. I can’t emphasize enough how important conducting myself as a poet for two years was for me. What I know about literature, I learned from the ‘inside’ (so to speak), and that’s a perspective that is too often missing from critical debate. At Windsor, I was surrounded by teachers who wrote, writers that taught, editors that did it all (not to mention a phenomenal administrative team), and they uniformly encouraged their students to do the same. After graduating, I was able to take my critical and practical interests to the UK, where I completed a PhD at the University of York in 2008. My dissertation (itself a kind of marriage of two of my MA courses) on embodiment in contemporary performance poetry, is now under consideration with academic publishers in the UK, and after a four year hiatus from writing creatively, I have been actively publishing some of the work from my MA dissertation in major UK journals, with an eye to revising it into a complete collection. Now, as a lecturer in literature and creative writing in the UK, I never fail to reach for those battered old notebooks that I carried with me across the Atlantic – and they never fail me.

—Nasser Hussein

Jay Dolmage (MA, 2002)

Teaching Experience

“I fell in love with teaching writing”

Jay Dolmage completed an MA in Creative Writing and English Literature at the University of Windsor in 2002. At Windsor, Jay became interested in Composition and Rhetoric, and went on to Miami University of Ohio to pursue a Ph.D.

At Miami of Ohio, Jay’s dissertation (and a subsequent book project) focused on the rhetorical history of disability, and the development of bodily rhetorics. For four years, between 2006 and 2010, Jay taught as an Assistant Professor at West Virginia University, where he also coordinated a large first-year writing program. In the summer of 2010, he returned to Canada to accept an Assistant Professor position at the University of Waterloo. In the Fall of 2010, he was named the Editor of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies.  He lives in Waterloo with his partner Heather, a son named Vernon, a daughter named Francine, and a dog named Tito.

Short fiction from Jay’s Windsor MA thesis has appeared in the New Quarterly, Prism, and Kiss Machine, among other places. 

He won the Theresa J. Enos Award in 2006 for “Breathe Upon us an Even Flame: Hephaestus, History and the Body of Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review. 25.2. (Spring 2006): 119-140.  Jay currently holds a SSHRC Insight Development Research Grant to study the history of Canadian immigration restriction rhetoric.

While I was at the University of Windsor I fell in love with teaching writing. I really enjoyed working with first-year Windsor students, and teaching allowed me to feel like I was more connected to the campus and the community. I was also part of a great cohort of fellow writers. My two years in Windsor were two of the most inspiring and productive of my life, and I continue to return to Windsor regularly and to stay in touch with faculty and students. I was also a member of the Windsor Lancers track and field and cross country running teams during my time in the program.

—Jay Dolmage, Ph.D
Editor, Canadian Journal of Disability Studies
Assistant Professor of English, University of Waterloo