Graduate students often work with faculty from across the department, taking advantage of our rich interdisciplinary expertise in areas such as

cultural studies
digital humanities
gender and sexuality studies
critical race studies
science, medicine and the humanities
rhetoric, performance studies, and poetics
and areas of emerging scholarly interest that overlap our programs in Creative Writing, Composition and Rhetoric, and Literary and Cultural Studies.

Faculty and Mentors

Residential MFA Faculty

Professors

Tim Melley

PhD, English and American Literature, Cornell, 1995
Professor of English and Affiliate of American Studies, Director of the Miami University Humanities Center
Areas: U.S. Literary and Cultural History Since 1950, Cold War Studies, Postmodernism, Fiction Writing

Brian Roley

JD, University of California, Los Angeles and MFA, Creative Writing, Cornell University, 1998
Professor of English and Affiliate of Global and Intercultural Studies, Director of Creative Writing
Areas: Creative Writing; Film, Theatre and Literature Adaptations; Disability / Medical Narratives; Contemporary and Twentieth Century Literature; Asian American Literature; Literature and the Law

Keith Tuma

PhD, University of Chicago, 1987
Professor of English, Director of Low Residency MFA, and Editor of the Miami University Press
Areas: Modern and Contemporary British, Irish, American, and Anglophone Literature, Creative and Performance Writing, Poetry and Poetics, Anecdotes and Ephemera, Travel Writing

Cathy Wagner

PhD, University of Utah, 2000
Professor of English
Areas: Creative Writing, Poetry Writing, Contemporary and Modern American Poetry and Poetics, Contemporary and Modern British Poetry and Poetics, Poetry and Politics

Associate Professors

Joseph Bates

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2006
Associate Professor of English
Areas: Narratology, Creative Writing Pedagogy, Fantastic, Absurd, and Grotesque Literatures; Southern Literature, Film Studies, Religion and Literature

Daisy Hernández

Daisy Hernández

MFA, University of Miami, 2013
Associate Professor of English
Areas: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, Personal Essay, Literary Journalism, Latina Narratives

Margaret Luongo

MFA, Creative Writing, University of Florida, 2001
Associate Professor of English
Areas: Creative writing practice, Short fiction, Experimental prose, Contemporary short forms

Eric Melbye

PhD, Creative Writing, University of Denver, 2001
Associate Professor of English (Middletown Campus)
Areas: Community-Based Learning, Creative Writing, Creative Writing Pedagogy, Exile Studies

TaraShea Nesbit

PhD, University of Denver, 2015
Associate Professor of English
Areas: 20th and 21st Century Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, Historical Fiction, Lyric Essays, Multi-Genre Texts, Creative Writing Pedagogy.

Visiting Assistant Professors

Emily Spencer, Heanon Wilkins Faculty Fellow

M.F.A., University of Iowa, Iowa Writers' Workshop
B.A., The Ohio State University

Areas: Poetry and Poetics, Writing and Health Science, Confessional Narrative, African American Writing, and Social Poetics