Writing Room staff, Fall 2009

	Jason Blalock Bio coming soon!
	Jeanette Blalock Jeanette is working in the Writing Room for her second year, and will graduate in Spring 2011. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Educational Foundations after graduation, and is a History major here at UMM. She has other interests ranging from critical race theory to quantum mechanics, and doesn't mind papers on subjects she's unfamiliar with. Prior to coming to UMM, Jeanette worked as a reporter and editor at daily and weekly newspapers. She spends her time outside the WR on video games, writing, cooking, and activism for fat acceptance and reproductive justice.
	Joshua Johnson Joshua P. Johnson is a senior English major with interests ranging from grammatical structures to Renaissance literature to writing biographical information (which would make it autobiographical) in the third person (which would make it biographical). Although it is his first year working in the Writing Room, Joshua makes up for what he lacks in experience with an open-minded and energetic approach. Joshua is currently in the process of applying to graduate school in the hope of one day teaching at a college level. Come on down to the Writing Room; he would love to work with you!
	Kate Novotny Kate is a senior in her fourth year at UMM and her second year in the Writing Room. She is an English major with a minor in philosophy, and is able and more-than-willing to help with any aspect of papers in these disciplines, from general writing concerns to formatting and specific disciplinary expectations. She also has a pretty thorough grounding in the general writing process that she can put to work helping you craft solid prose in any subject (even in science, as long as you ask about organization and not organisms!).
	Nancy Pederson, ESL Specialist Nancy has an M.A. in ESL and teaches academic English language skills and an occasional special section of College Writing for international students at UMM. She’s had the pleasure of living and teaching in a number of countries, including China, Korea and the United Arab Emirates. She likes writing because it is tangible language, and improvement of writing leads to improvement of other skills of English.
	Dominic Scheck Dominic’s name can be traced back several thousand years to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word *dem, meaning "house." He is etymologically related to words like freedom, doom, dominate, dome, domesticate, kingdom, and domineering and sometimes prefers them to the extended members of his fleshier family. An English major in his third year, Dominic spends much of his time outside the writing room writing, reading, climbing trees, and listening to death metal music. Sentence-level decisions about word choice and order particularly fascinate him, but he’s always eager to help make a piece of writing work on a broader scale as well.
	Allisen Schlick Allisen is a senior at UMM double-majoring in Biology and English. She plans on becoming a high school teacher, but she loves both subjects so much she doesn't know which one to teach. She is has experience writing in MLA format and biology's unique and seemingly arbitrary format, but she will work with you in any format that you choose.
	Tisha Turk, Writing Room Director Tisha is the Writing Room director and an English professor at UMM. She likes writing a lot, and has gotten pretty good at it over the years, but she also knows it can be a pain, so she's happy to commiserate with people who are feeling frustrated or stuck. Her Ph.D. is in English literature, but she has wide-ranging interests and has worked with writers in lots of different fields, including anthropology, art history, astronomy, biology, computer science, economics, educational policy, environmental studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, international relations, landscape architecture (no, really, it's a thing!), philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, sociology, and theater. She's also happy to help with personal statements for graduate school and application letters for jobs and internships.
	Sophie Vogt Sophie is a UMM senior and English major from Detroit Lakes, MN. She is planning to enter the Secondary Education program and do student teaching next year. In her spare time, Sophie likes to kayak, bike, ski, play board games and cook. She believes that the Writing Room will be a great place to work because writing papers is one of the toughest tasks in college and it is helpful to work with another person during this process.
	Meaghan Young-Stephens Meaghan is a sophomore from Lino Lakes, Minnesota. When not actively pursuing her English and political science double major, Meaghan can often be found baking yummy fruit pies or moseying around Morris on her bicycle. Her greatest loves are musicals, bumper stickers, and people playing guitar on the mall.