At summer's end in Fort Collins, Colo., the public pool in City Park closes for cleaning. Just before the shutdown, something a little strange happens.
In preparation for teaching two sections of first-year writing this fall, I've developed a new point of contact for students that will integrate Google's Calendar, News, and Docs, file-sharing site drop.io, and the Colorado State University Writing Studio. Look for an RSS feed of posts at College Composition elsewhere on this blog.
RBM delivered a reading and talk on "Transmigration and the Fictional Essay"—adapted from his creative dissertation, The Land of Infinite Variety, a collection of linked prose—at the 55th annual conference of the Western Literature Association in 2020. One of the collection's stories received the WLA's creative writing award the same year.
The Society of Professional Journalists Western Washington chapter named RBM its 2019 Journalism Educator of the Year. He and other honorees delivered remarks at the Northwest Excellence in Journalism Awards Party in Seattle.
Having concluded his doctoral work at the University of South Dakota, RBM no longer edits nonfiction for South Dakota Review, but remains a superfan. Among other fond memories: celebrating SDR's 50th anniversary in Seattle and presenting a panel on creative writing pedagogy with former managing editor Sara Henning at the 2014 AWP Conference: "Teaching Brief, Sudden, Flash, and Very Short Prose."
After teaching in the humanities for more than a decade, RBM currently works as an instructional designer for Oregon State University Ecampus. Along with teaching English at Clark College, he served from 2015-19 as Washington State University Vancouver's first adviser dedicated to student media. He lives in Portland with his partner and their two children.