UTRGV | Faculty

Faculty

Emmy Perez

Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3435
Email: emmy.perez@utrgv.edu
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Emmy Perez

Emmy Pérez, a recipient of a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship, is the author of the poetry collections With the River on our Face (University of Arizona Press) and Solstice (Swan Scythe Press). A graduate of Columbia University (MFA) and the University of Southern California (BA), for over a decade, she has been a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros for socially engaged writers. Previous honors include poetry fellowships from CantoMundo, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She has also received the James D. Phelan Award and the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award.

Her work appears in anthologies such as Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology (University of Georgia Press), A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line (University of Iowa Press),The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press), and is forthcoming in Another Music: An Anthology of New Latina Poetry (University of Oklahoma Press).

Currently, she is Professor of Creative Writing. In 2016, she was awarded a Faculty Excellence Award in Student Mentoring, and in 2012, a UT Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award. She also serves as Associate Director for the Center for Mexican American Studies and is an affiliate faculty member in Mexican American Studies.

She also serves on the organizing committee for CantoMundo, a national literary organization for Latinx poets, whose annual retreat will take place at Columbia University, summer 2019.

Curriculum Vitae

Emmy Perez
Professor
Creative Writing
Email: emmy.perez@utrgv.edu
ELABS 206
Phone: (956) 665-3435

Steven P. Schnieder

Professor
Phone: (956) 665-8775
Email: steven.schneider@utrgv.edu
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Steven P. Schnieder

Steven P. Schneider is professor of Creative Writing and Literatures and Cultural Studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is also director of new programs and special projects for the College of Fine Arts at UTRGV. Steven is co-creator with his artist wife Reefka of the traveling exhibit and book Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives (Fronteras: dibujando las vidas fronterizas). As department Chair of English from 2001 to 2007 at the University of Texas Pan-American, Professor Schneider led the creation of a new MFA program in Creative Writing and pioneered the teaching of culturally relevant literature in the core curriculum. He is invited frequently to speak to school districts throughout Texas.

Steven is the author of several collections of poetry, including Prairie Air Show and Unexpected Guests. His poems have been featured in numerous anthologies and published in such journals as Critical Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, The Literary Review, and in the syndicated column and web site American Life in Poetry. He is the author A.R. Ammons and the Poetics of Widening Scope and the editor of Complexities of Motion: New Essays on A.R. Ammons’s Long Poems and The Contemporary Narrative Poem:Critical Crosscurrents. His awards include a Wurlitzer Foundation residency in Taos, New Mexico, a Nebraska Arts Council Fellowship and three Big Read grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Curriculum Vitae

Steven P. Schnieder
Professor
Creative Writing
Email: steven.schneider@utrgv.edu
ELABS 326
Phone: (956) 665-8775

Eric Miles Williamson

Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3400
Email: eric.williamson@utrgv.edu
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Eric Miles Williamson

Eric Miles Williamson is author of four books of fiction and 3 books of criticism/nonfiction. He edits American Book Review, Texas Review, and Boulevard. He teaches literature and fiction at UTRGV.

Curriculum Vitae

Eric Miles Williamson
Professor
Creative Writing
Email: eric.williamson@utrgv.edu
ETROX W208
Phone: (956) 665-3400

Elvia Ardalani

Associate Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3443
Email: elvia.ardalani@utrgv.edu
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Elvia Ardalani

Dr. Elvia Ardalan, Associate Professor, is the author of the following poetry collections: Y comerás del pan sentado junto al fuego (Claves Latinoamericanas, 2002), De cruz y media Luna/From Cross and Crescent Moon (Claves Latinoamericanas, 2006) Miércoles de Ceniza (Migual Angel Porrúa, 2007), Cuadernos para un huérfano (Claves Latinoamericanas, 2012), Callejón Kashaní (Imaginarium Literario, 2013) and El ser de los enseres/The Being of the Household Beings (Libros Medio Siglo, 2014). She has published in Isla Negra, Perito, Sinalefa and Puentes, among other venues. She co-edited in 2011 the book Miguel Hernández desde América for the Miguel Hernández Foundation in Oriuela, Spain. In the field of translation she has translated Rumi, Omar Khayam, and Hafez into Spanish. She has been nominated for the Jose Fuentes Mares Award and the International Carlos Pellicer Poetry Award. She graduated from Texas A&I University with a doctoral degree in the field of Bilingualism and Language Acquisition.

Curriculum Vitae

Elvia Ardalani
Associate Professor
Writing and Language Studies
Email: elvia.ardalani@utrgv.edu
ELABS 315
Phone: (956) 665-3443

Jean Braithwaite

Associate Professor
Phone: (956) 665-5236
Email: jean.braithwaite@utrgv.edu
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Jean Braithwaite

Jean Braithwaite is a specialist in nonfiction writing, with particular interests in memoir, essays, science writing, and documentaries. Every subject is fascinating if you go into it deeply enough! Other important interests include graphic literature (aka comics) and science fiction (which really ought to be called philosophy fiction).

Curriculum Vitae

Jean Braithwaite
Associate Professor
Creative Writing
Email: jean.braithwaite@utrgv.edu
ELABS 217
Phone: (956) 665-5236

David Carren

Associate Professor
Phone: (956) 665-2634
Email: david.carren@utrgv.edu
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David Carren

Associate Professor David Bennett Carren film and TV credits include Star Trek, Stargate, Murder, She Wrote, and The Red Queen

His recognition includes a First Place in the New York Television and Film Festival, a Writer’s Guild Award Nomination, and semi-finalist status in the 2013 Eugene O'Neil National Playwright's Conference. His plays have been performed at a variety of venues, including the Back Alley Theater in Los Angeles.

David earned his Bachelor in Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and his Master in Fine Arts at Spalding University. He teaches screenwriting, film directing, and film history.

Curriculum Vitae

David Carren
Associate Professor
Theatre
Email: david.carren@utrgv.edu
ELABS 148
Phone: (956) 665-2634

Luz Martin

Associate Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3421
Email: luz.martin@utrgv.edu
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Luz Martin

Edna Ochoa is an Associate Professor at University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. She teaches Creative Writing, Latino/a Literature, Spanish Language Journalism, and Mexican American Studies courses. She is the author of Sombra para espejos, Respiración de raíces, La cerca circular, Jirones de ayer, Ruinas, and El método más efectivo y otras obras breves. Her translations to Spanish include Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez and The Frog and His Friend Saved Humanity by Víctor Villaseñor. In 2009, she was a recipient of the Provost Award for Latin American Studies for UTPA. She is also a performer, director and playwright. Her essays have been published in several books and journals.

Curriculum Vitae

Luz Martin
Associate Professor
Literature and Cultural Studies
Email: luz.martin@utrgv.edu
ELABS 327
Phone: (956) 665-3421

Christopher Carmona

Assistant Professor
Phone: (956) 882-7302
Email: christopher.carmona@utrgv.edu
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Christopher Carmona

Christopher Carmona was the inaugural writer-in-residence for the Langdon Review Writers Residency Program in 2015. His story, “Strange Leaves,” was a finalist for the Texas Observer Story Contest in 2014. He has one collection of short fiction entitled, The Road to Llorona Park and two collections of poetry: beat and I Have Always Been Here.. He has edited two anthologies, Outrage: A Protest Anthology about Injustice in a Post 9/11 World and The Beatest State in The Union: An Anthology of Beat Texas Writing. He was also a co-author for Nuev@s Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue about New Chican@ Identities.

Curriculum Vitae

Christopher Carmona
Assistant Professor
Creative Writing
Email: christopher.carmona@utrgv.edu
BLIBR 2418
Phone: (956) 882-7302

Britt Haraway

Assistant Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3335
Email: britt.haraway@utrgv.edu
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Britt Haraway

Britt Haraway is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His stories have appeared in the South Dakota Review, Natural Bridge, 971, Product, New Madrid, Great Weather for Media, Moon City Review, and BorderSenses. His poetry has also appeared in BorderSenses. His collection of stories has been accepted by Lamar University Literary Press.

He is the fiction editor for riverSedge magazine and is the faculty adviser for Gallery, UTRGV’s student literary arts magazine. He received a PhD from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi and was raised in the Memphis area.

Curriculum Vitae

Britt Haraway
Assistant Professor
Creative Writing
Email: britt.haraway@utrgv.edu
ELABS 273
Phone: (956) 665-3335

Jose A. Rodriquez

Assistant Professor
Phone: (956) 665-3335
Email: jose.rodriguez@utrgv.edu
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Jose A. Rodriquez

José Antonio Rodríguez’s books include The Shallow End of Sleep, winner of the Bob Bush Memorial Award from the Texas Institute of Letters; Backlit Hour, a finalist for the 2014 Paterson Poetry Prize; and Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives, a collaborative project with visual art by Reefka Schneider, poems by Steven Schneider, and his Spanish translations. His work has appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, The Texas Observer, Green Mountains Review, Memorious, RHINO, Huizache, the Poetry Society of America online, and elsewhere. He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

Curriculum Vitae

Jose A. Rodriquez
Assistant Professor
Creative Writing
Email: jose.rodriguez@utrgv.edu
ELABS 272
Phone: (956) 665-3335

Robert P. Moreira

Lecturer II
Phone: (956) 665-8771
Email: robert.moreira@utrgv.edu
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Robert P. Moreira

Robert Paul Moreira, Lecturer II at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas Pan American, and his Ph.D. in English from The University of Texas at San Antonio. He is the recipient of the Wendy Barker Creative Writing Award (2011) and two awards for short fiction from the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers (2009, 2010). His books include ¡Arriba Baseball!: A Collection of Latin@ Baseball Fiction (2013) and Scores (2015), winner of the 2016 NACCS Tejas FOCO Fiction Award. His creative and scholarly work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Azahares, Southwest American Literature, Aethlon, Soccer and Society, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the anthologies SOL: English Writing From Mexico (2012), Along the River 2 (2012), New Border Voices (2013), and Open Field: Gender, Sexuality and the Black Athlete (forthcoming).

As a dramatist, Robert is the book writer, composer, and lyricist for the upcoming musical Malinalli. His latest play, Roses From Castile, was selected by Milagro Theater as part of their inaugural INGENIO Play Reading Series in Portland, Oregon in February of 2018.

Robert’s creative and research interests include contemporary fiction, playwriting, musical theater, Latinx and Multiethnic Literatures, and Sports Studies.

Curriculum Vitae

Robert P. Moreira
Lecturer II
Creative Writing
Email: robert.moreira@utrgv.edu
ELABS 205
Phone: (956) 665-8771

Dr. Philip Zwerling, Retired

Associate Professor
Email: philip.zwerling@utrgv.edu
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Dr. Philip Zwerling, Retired

Philip Zwerling, Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas Pan American, earned his M.Div. in Theology from Harvard University, his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans, and his Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of two books (Nicaragua: A New Kind of Revolution, 1985, and After School Theatre Programs for At Risk Teenagers, 2007) and editor of one (The CIA on Campus: Academic Freedom and the National Security State, 2012. His peer reviewed articles appear in the Journal of Theatre and Religion, Nebula, and the Community Literacy Journal.

Scenes from his plays are anthologized in One on One: The Best Women’s Monologues for the Twentieth First Century, One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the Twenty-First Century, and Duo: The Best Scenes for the Twenty First Century, all by Applause Books. His play, “The History of Mexico: A Dream Play” appeared in the Langdon Review.

He specializes in teaching playwriting, screenwriting, and dramatic literature at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Dr. Philip Zwerling, Retired
Associate Professor
Creative Writing
Email: philip.zwerling@utrgv.edu

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Creative Writing Program College of Fine Arts

Faculty

Emmy Perez

Steven P. Schnieder

Eric Miles Williamson

Elvia Ardalani

Jean Braithwaite

David Carren

Luz Martin

Christopher Carmona

Britt Haraway

Jose A. Rodriquez

Robert P. Moreira

Dr. Philip Zwerling, Retired