University Press Committee

---

Scott Kaukonen

 

UPC Board Chair

Associate Professor

Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006

Creative Writing; Contemporary Fiction; 20th and 21st Century American Literature; Religious Culture and Literature

Dr. Scott Kaukonen teaches graduate courses in fiction writing, publishing, and twentieth- and twenty-first century literature. His debut collection of stories, Ordination, won the Ohio State Prize for Short Fiction, and was published by the Ohio State University Press. The collection includes the story, “Punnett’s Squares,” winner of the Nelson Algren Prize from the Chicago Tribune. He’s a past recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he’s also received an AWP/Prague Summer Fellowship. His fiction has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Review, Pleiades, Barrelhouse, Normal School, Third Coast, and elsewhere. His novel-in-progress, The Martyrdom of Katie Deeds, explores the relationship between American fundamentalism and American consumer culture. He is co-fiction editor of the Texas Review.

Major Accomplishments

Ordination (Ohio State University Press, 2006)

Pet Shop Girls, by Anja Snellman, co-translator with Helena Halmari (Ice Cold Crime 2012)

Associate Editor, Journal of Finnish Studies

Director, MFA Program

---

Evelyn Soto

Dr. Evelyn Soto is assistant professor of English and coordinator of the American Studies minor at Sam Houston State University. She holds a BA from Cornell University and an MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Across her research and teaching, she brings together hemispheric literary studies, Latinx studies, and histories of race to understand how new political possibilities emerged from the fissures of colonial conflict. She is currently at work on a first book manuscript titled Tainted Translations: Early Latinx Political Imaginaries and Trans-American Empire. She has presented her research across multiple national conferences and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Intertexts, Early American Literature, and Latinx Literature in Transition, among others.

Major Accomplishments

American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Project Development Award (2020-2021)

CHCI (Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes)-ACLS Fellowship (Summer 2021)

“Translating the Tapada’s Veil in Who Would Have Thought It?” in Histories and Cultures of Latinas: Suffrage, Activism, and Women’s Rights” (Arte Público Press, forthcoming 2023).

---

Ginger Ko

Dr. Ginger Ko teaches graduate courses in poetry and poetic theory. She also hold degrees from the University of Wyoming, Indiana University, and UCLA. She has taught courses in writing and Women’s Studies since 2012, and she actively publishes and conducts research in new media writing, feminist poetics, and activist writing and art. Her next project, a book as interactive app, is forthcoming from The Operating System. Her poetry and essays can be found in Critical Quarterly, The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, The Offing, VIDA Review, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing at Sam Houston State University.

Major Accomplishments

Motherlover (Bloof, 2016)

Inherit, (Sidebrow, 2017)

Comorbid (Lark Books)

Ghosts, Models, Visions (Bloof, 2017)

How Glossy the Plastic (Garden-Door Press)

---

Edward Morin

Edward Morin has been working in digital and electronic formats since the late 90's, including animation, interactive multimedia, physical computing, rapid prototyping, sound and video. His films have been screened at festivals and galleries in over 70 events in 12 countries.

Website: https://vimeo.com/edwardramsaymorin

---

Kandi Tayebi

Dr. Kandi Tayebi is a Professor of English who teaches classes in literary theory and 19th-century British literature. An authority on the Romantic poet Charlotte Smith, Professor Tayebi has published articles on an array of literary and pedagogical topics, including Smith, Margaret Atwood, environmental literature, computers in the classroom, mentoring, and assessment methods for students with disabilities; she has also published creative non-fiction in The Georgia Review. Additionally, she has received over $5,000,000 in federal grants. Professor Tayebi, whose research interests include not only her teaching fields but also women’s and ecological literature, was the feature editor for a volume of the Academic Exchange Quarterly on teaching environmental literature. She formerly directed the Graduate Studies Program in English and was Chair of the Sam Houston State University Faculty Senate. Dr. Tayebi served as Dean of Graduate Studies and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Sam Houston State University from 2009 to 2015 before returning to the classroom.

Major Accomplishments

Tayebi, Kandi. “Charlotte Smith and the Quest for the Romantic Prophetic Voice.” Women’s Writing. 11(2004):421-438.

Tayebi, Kandi. “Undermining the Eighteenth-Century Pastoral: Rewriting the Poet’s Relationship to Nature in Charlotte Smith’s Poetry.” European Romantic Review. 15(2004): 131-150.

Tayebi, Kandi. "Warring Memories." The Georgia Review. Fall 2001.

Tayebi, Kandi, Bernice Strauss, Tama Hamrick, and Lydia Fox (2018). “Demystifying Academic Writing: Mentoring Graduate Writing Skills.” The Chronicle of Mentoring and Coaching, vol. 2, 2018, Special Issue 1, pp. 798-804.

Tayebi, Kandi, Tama Hamrick and Lydia Fox. “Transforming Lives: Mentoring First Generation, Minority College Students.” The Chronicle of Mentoring and Coaching. 2(2017): 120-126.

​Johnson, Judy A., Achilles N. Bardos, and Kandi A. Tayebi. “Relationships Between the Cognitive Assessment System and Writing Achievement in Students with and without Writing Disabilities.” American Journal of Psychological Research. 1(2005):32-44.

​Tayebi, Kandi and Judy A. Johnson. “Feminism’s Final Frontier: Cyberspace.” Academic Exchange Quarterly 8(2004): 190-195.

Tayebi, Kandi (Co-Principal Investigator), Lydia Fox, Bernice Strauss. McNair Scholars Grant. TRIO Federal Grants. Sam Houston State University. $1,219,390. Funded 2017-2022.

---

Michael Arrington

Dr. Michael Irvin Arrington began his studies of social support for and among families affected by prostate cancer at the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of South Florida. Over the past two decades, he has held full-time faculty positions at Ohio University, the University of Kentucky, Indiana State University, and the Mercer University School of Medicine. In addition, he served as Director of Scholarly Activity and Research at the Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education in Scranton, PA. His work in the classroom was recognized by the Southern States Communication Association, who awarded him the John I. Sisco Excellence in Teaching Award in 2013. His scholarship bridges the medical humanities and social sciences, investigating the intersections of interpersonal communication, health, narrative, media, persuasion, and diversity. His research has been well received, as evidenced by the Distinguished Journal Article Award he received from the Family Communication Division of the National Communication Association in 2012. He has published dozens of articles and presented dozens of papers at regional, national, and international conferences.

Major Accomplishments

John I. Sisco Excellence in Teaching Award, 2013

Distinguished Journal Article Award, received from the Family Communication Division of the National Communication Association in 2012