research

Overview I have a … complicated career: I began work writing about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature (my dissertation is on Jane Austen), but moved to autobiography studies about ten years ago. I am now an editor for a/b: Auto/Biography Studies and for Adoption & Culture. And I write and publish creatively, largely in creative nonfiction. My articles concern adoption life writing. My book, Coming Apart Together: Fragments from an Adoption came out in 2005. Since then I have won several awards for creative nonfiction and fiction. In 2005, I won an NEH; in 2008, I won a Fulbright Scholars Award.

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Creative Writing in Print
 
 

Nonfiction

§ “Sight-Seeing.” Arts & Letters (2009): 50-62.

§ “Transportation.” Open Windows: An Anthology of Poetry, Fiction&Essays 3 (2008): 53–58.

§ “Sentencing.” GeorgetownReview 9.1 (2007): 55–67.

§ Coming Apart Together: Fragments from an Adoption. Teaneck, NJ: The Literate Chigger Press, 2005.

§ “A Romantic—Get Away!” The Floridian. The St. Petersburg Times. July 31, 2005:D1, D3.

Fiction and Poetry

§ “Charlemagne’s Feast.” OurStories 2.1 (Fall 2007).<http://www.ourstories.us /Fall%202007%20Issue/HIPCHEN_Story.htm>. Rpt. The Best of Our Stories. Forthcoming, 2010.

§ “What the Blind Girl Saw.” Northwest Review 41.2 (2003): 49-54.

§ “The Black Man.”NorthwestReview 41.2 (2003): 55-61.

§ “Parody: The Turkey.” The St. Petersburg Times. 28 Nov 2002: D3.

§ “Janus in Asphodel.”Poem 83 (2000): 25.

§ “Mink Stole.”Poem 83 (2000): 26.

ACADEMIC WRITING IN PRINT

§ “Images of the Family Body in Adoptee Search Narratives.” New Essays on Life Writing and the Body. Ed. Christopher Stuart and Katherine Pryor. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2009. 168–89.

§ “‘An Inviolate Preservation’: Immortalizing the Lock.” On Second Thought: Updating the Eighteenth-Century Text. Ed. Deborah Taylor Bourdeau and Elizabeth Kraft. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2007. 262-71.

§ “Adoption Life Writing: Origins and Other Ghosts.” With Jill Deans. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 18.2 (2003): 163-291.

§ “Accounting for Fanny: ‘this curious inventory’ in Mansfield Park and The Loiterer.” The Eighteenth-Century Novel 2 (2002): 306-24.

§ “William Hogarth.” Dancing From the Quill: Reimagining Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. Ed. Tim Glenn, Karen Eliot and Nena Crouch. CD/DVD-ROM. Columbus: Ohio State, 2001. Disc 3: “The Supporting Research.”

§ “‘My house . . .turned topsy‑turvy’: Order and Acting in The Loiterer and Mansfield Park.” Persuasions 19 (December 1997): 31-35.

§ “John Wain.” Dictionary of Literary Biography: Twentieth Century British Literary Biographers. Ed.Steven Serafin. Vol. 155. London: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1995: 310-19.

§ “Muff-play in TomJones.” The Explicator 53.1 (Fall 1994): 16-18.

Editing and Book Reviews
 
 

§ Special Issue on Adoption Autobiography. With Jill Deans. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies18.2 (2003).

§ Rev. of Surrendered Child: A Birthmother’s Journey. By Karen McElmurray. ASAIK Newsletter. October,2006. 14-15.

§ Rev. of The Complete Poems of James Austen, Jane Austen’s Older Brother. By James Austen. Ed. and Intro. David Selwyn. JASNA News. 2005. 17.

§ Rev. of Jane Austen in Hollywood. Ed. Linda Troost and Sayre Greenfield. Eighteenth Century Studies Online. 2003. <http://back.csulb.edu:8080/asecs/FMPro?-db=reviews.fp3&-format=index.html&-View>.

§ Rev. of Early Victorian Men. By George Walker. Ed. R. L. Shep. JASNA News. 2002.7.

§ Rev. of Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries and English Diurnal Form, 1660-1785. By Stuart Sherman. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 12.2 (Fall 1997): 276-79.

 
 

Work Forthcoming in Print
 
 

§ “Genetic Sexual Attraction and the Creation of Fatherhood: Making Daddy (Infamous) in The Kiss.” Special issue on fame/infamy, Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association.

§ “Solving for P.” Fourth Genre. Scheduled for publication in 2011. Second essay, untitled, accepted for simultaneous publication in Fourth Genre.

§ “The Ethics of Naming in Adoption Search Narratives.” Special edition, Winter Verlag. Scheduled for publication, 2010.

§ Special Issue on African-American Life Writing. With Stacy C. Boyd. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies. Scheduled for publication, 2010.

Conference Presentations

§ “a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.” The International Auto/Biography Association Conference. June, 2010. Roundtable participant.

§ “Editing Adoption & Culture.” Conference on Adoption and Culture. April/May, 2010.

§ “Reading Trauma in Surrendered Child: A Birthmother’s Journey.” The International Conference on Narrative. April, 2010.

§ “‘The Mother Who Isn’t One’: The Birthmother as Interstitial Self in Karen McElmurray’s Surrendered Child: A Birthmother’s Journey. Boundaries and Bridges: English Studies in the Borderlands. March, 2010.

§ “The Too-Embodied Voice: Reading Trauma in Surrendered Child: A Birthmother’s Journey.” Modern Language Association Conference. December, 2009.

• “Reading for Adoption in Disability Life Writing: Adam Dorris and The Broken Cord.” Modern Language Association Conference. December, 2008.
• “Caste and the Adopted Adolescent in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance.” Fifth Biennial Adoption Conference at St. John’s University. October 2008.
• “Translating The Kiss: Genetic Sexual Attraction and the Boundaries of Fatherhood.” International Auto/Biography Association Conference. July 2008.
• “Genetic Sexual Attraction in The Kiss: Constructing Fatherhood through Incest.” Popular Culture/American Culture Association Conference. March 2008.
• “Mediating Truths in Adoption Search Narratives.” International Auto/Biography Association Conference. Mainz, Germany. July, 2006.

§ “The Ethics of Naming in Adoption Search Narratives.” Modern Language Association Conference. December, 2005.

§ “Adopting Identities: Race, Nationality, and the Trans-ethnic Adoption Narrative.” Modern Language Association Conference. December, 2004. Special Session Organizer andChair.

§ “Family Bodies, Family Photographs: Illustrating Adoption Lifewriting.” National Women’s Studies Association Conference. June, 2004.

§ “Importing Delicacies: Colonizing Mansfield Park.” The Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference. March, 2003.

§ “On Getting Knocked Up in Mansfield Park.” International Conference on Romanticism. October, 2002.

§ “Rigging the Lottery: The Figure of the Foundling in The March to Finchley.” The American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Conference. April, 2002.

§ “Teaching Jane Austen.” The American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Conference. April, 2001. Round Table Discussant.

§ “Eighteenth Century Pedagogues.” The American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Conference. April, 2001. Panel Organizer and Chair.

§ “(Uni)forming Foundlings: Hogarth’s Designs for Orphans.” The Samuel Johnson Society Conference. April, 2001.

§ “Inventing Charity: Hogarth and the London Foundling Hospital.” The 15th Annual DeBartolo Conference. February, 2001.

§ “Sex, Lies and the Fiber Arts in Dorothy Sayers’ The Five Red Herrings.” The International Conference of the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. April, 2000.

§ “Fondling Women, Foundling Children: A Harlot’s Progress (Plate 1) and Moses Brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter.” Aphra Behn Society Conference. November, 1999.

§ “‘[T]he chief end of woman...’: Spinning Wheels and Spinsterhood.” Aphra Behn Society Conference. October, 1998.

§ “Accounting for Fanny: Reading Inventory Texts in Mansfield Park and The Loiterer.” American Conference on Romanticism. January, 1998.

§ “S/Excrementality and Beauty Science in Swift’s Unprintable Poems: ‘On a Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed.’” Aphra Behn Society Conference. October, 1996.

§ “‘Grist and Matter’: The Swiftian Science of Beauty.” Interface ‘93, Conference on Technology and Literature. October, 1993.

Awards

Writing

§ “In the Wake.” Finalist, Susan Atefat Prize for Nonfiction. Arts & Letters, 2009.

§ “Solving for P.” Honorable Mention, 5^thAnnual Editor’s Prize. Fourth Genre, 2009.

§ “Charlemagne’s Feast.” Finalist, The C. Prescott Sobol Award for Fiction. The Cream City Review, 2008.

§ “Sight-seeing.” Second Prize, Lush Triumphant Prize for Nonfiction. subTerrain, 2008.

§ “The Course of True Love.” Third Prize, Baltimore Review Contest for Fiction, 2008.

§ “Sentencing.” First Prize, 2008Georgetown Review Contest. The Georgetown Review, 2007.

§ “Transportation.” Open Windows First Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Open Windows (Ghost Road Press), 2007.

§ “Charlemagne’s Feast.” Runner Up, Our Stories Prize for Fiction, 2007.

§ “Sight-seeing.” Finalist, Dorothy Churchill Cappon Prize for the Essay. New Letters, 2007.

§ “Sentencing.” Honorable Mention, New Millennium Writings Nonfiction Contest, 2007.

§ “Meeting the Parents.” Memoirs Contest Award. The Writer’s Workshop (Ashville, NC), 2003.

Research and Professional Development

§ The J. William Fulbright Scholar Award. 2008.

§ National Endowment for the Humanities Grant. 2005.

§ American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies/Newberry Library Fellowship. 1997.

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