People
Senior Lecturers
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James Britton
Senior Lecturer- 305-284-4673
- 113 ECC
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Zisca Burton, M.A. (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994)
Director of English Composition and Senior Lecturer- 305-284-3090
- Ashe Bldg 327
Areas of Interest: African American Women's Literature
Zisca Burton was born and raised in Cambridge, England, and her parents are from Dominica, in the Caribbean. She received her Bachelor’s degree in English and her Master’s degree in African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has contributed to Writing African American Women: An Encyclopedia of Literature by and About Women of Color (Greenwood Press 2006) and the African American National Biography (Oxford University Press 2008). Her book Writing About Toni Morrison (Chelsea House 2008) helps students to navigate Morrison’s work. She teaches English Composition and Introduction to Africana Studies.
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Nancy Clasby , Ph.D.. (Wisconsin, 1966)
Senior Lecturer
- 305-667-8277
Nancy Clasby's fields are American literature and the Bible as literature. Her publications include New Jerusalem: Myth, Literature and the Sacred (2000) as well as articles on Toni Morrison, Henry James, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Malcolm X, Ben Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Flannery O'Connor, Jack London, and on Native American myth, in Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory, Studies in Short Fiction, The Midwest Quarterly, Spring Journal, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Crosscurrents, Religion and Literature, Journal of Black Studies, Explicator and College Language Association Journal. She developed and taught the first courses offered in Black Literature at the University of Miami in 1969, and developed the proposal for the Black Studies program adopted in 1970. She won the Ibis Award for Excellence in Teaching. Currently she is completing a book on the Bible as literature.
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KC Culver, M.F.A. (University of South Carolina, 2003)
Assistant Director, Writing Center and Senior Lecturer- 305-284-2956
- Writing Center
KC Culver is a senior lecturer and practicing writer. She received her Master's specializing in Rhetoric/Composition and 20th Century Literature from Auburn University, and her MFA specializing in Poetry from the University of South Carolina. She acts as the Assistant Director of the Writing Center and the Managing Editor of the undergraduate literary journal Mangrove. Her teaching interests revolve around teaching with technology, and she has developed several classes at the University of Miami, including a course producing a webzine, a course about blogging, and a course on HBO's "The Wire." She has taught poetry to talented high school students through UM’s Summer Scholars program and leads a reading group for older adults through UM’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. She also owns an internet company that retails plus size lingerie and, in her spare time, works to write and publish poetry.
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Robert Michael Healy, Ph.D. (University of Miami, 1997)
Senior Lecturer
- 305-284-5427
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Zachery Hickman, M.F.A. (University of Miami, 2003)
Senior Lecturer- 305-284-4673
- 109 ECC
Zachery Hickman was raised in the Appalachian Mountains where he received a BA in English from West Virginia University. He received an M.F.A. from the University of Miami in 2003 where he was a James A. Michener Fellow, and editor of Mangrove 2003. His poetry attempts to forge the gap between idealism and reality, between the lyrical and the narrative. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poetry.
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Judy G. Hood, M.F.A. (University of Miami, 2004)
Senior Lecturer- 305-284-4673
- 112 ECC
Areas of Interest: American Literature, Visual Rhetoric
Judy Hood studied at Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany, graduated from Stetson University, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami. Her work ranges from non-fiction to poetry and has been published in The Southern Quarterly, Mangrove Literary Magazine, and the Miami Herald. She contributed to the college text Composing Inquiry and presently teaches Visual Rhetoric and Advanced Academic Writing at UM.
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Joanna Johnson, M.A. (University of Miami, 2002)
Associate Director and Senior Lecturer- 305-284-4673
- 101 ECC
Joanna Johnson's interests include postcolonial writing and theory, in particular relating to the Caribbean. In addition to teaching, she is also at work on her Ph.D, in which she examines representations of the English rural landscape in Caribbean texts. She is a member of the Caribbean Literary Studies and Atlantic Studies groups at UM. She has taught ENG 105, 106, 107, 208, 330, and333 .
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Mia Leonin
Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing
- 305-284-4673
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April Mann, M.A. (University of Miami, 1993)
Senior Lecturer and Writing Center Director
- 305-284-2956
April Mann teaches in the English Composition Program and directs the Writing Center. She is currently involved in several projects related to writing, writing centers, and disability, specifically the autism-related disability known as Asperger’s Syndrome. She was a contributor to and reader for Composing Inquiry: Methods and Readings for Investigation and Writing.
In 2004, April received an Excellence-in-Teaching Award.
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Gina Maranto, M.A. (Johns Hopkins, 1980)
Senior Lecturer; Co-Director, Ecosystem Science and Policy; Graduate Program Coordinator, Environmental Science and Policy- 305-284-8519
- 230J Ungar Bldg.
Gina Maranto received her M.A. in fiction from The Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University in 1980. She is a prize-winning science writer who has covered biomedicine, the environment, and Earth sciences at the national level since 1982. Her articles, opinion pieces, and reviews have appeared in Discover,The Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American, The New York Times, and other publications. She is author of Quest for Perfection (1996), a history of attempts to alter birth outcomes and a critique of new reproductive technologies.
Since 1998, she has taught courses in the English department, including ENG 105 and 107 (Writing about Science), 209, 290, 306, and 591. She has also taught a graduate scientific writing course at the Miller School of Medicine, IBS 602, as well as courses in Women's and Gender Studies (WGS 350) and Ecosystem Science and Policy (ECS 113 and 302). Between 2009 and Fall 2011, she was director of the graduate program in Environmental Science and Policy, and currently serves as its coordinator. She is co-director of the undergraduate program in Ecosystem Science and Policy in the Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. She directed the English Composition program from 2007 to 2011.
In 2006, she received the Dean's Award in Special Recognition for Contributions to Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts & Sciences. She has also received a Vice President's Award for Service (2004), a Provost's Grant for Innovative Teaching (2004), and an Excellence-in-Teaching Award (2003).
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Martha Otis, M.F.A. (University of Florida, 2000), M.A. (Stanford, 1993)
Senior Lecturer- 305-284-4673
- 108 ECC
Areas of Interest: Composition, Fiction Writing
Martha Otis has an MFA from the University of Florida, an MA from Stanford University, and a BA from the University of Chicago. Her interests include poetry and all genres of narrative storytelling. She teaches composition 105, 106 and 107, and moonlights in creative writing 209 and 406.
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Adina Sanchez-Garcia
Assistant Director and Senior Lecturer- 305-284-4673
- 110 ECC
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Peter Schmitt, M.F.A. (Iowa, 1983)
Senior Lecturer
- 305-284-5607
Peter Schmitt is the author of two collections of poems, Hazard Duty and Country Airport, both from Copper Beech Press, and a chapbook, To Disappear, from Pudding House. His new book, Renewing the Vows, is forthcoming from David Robert Books in 2007. He has received The Lavan Award from The Academy of American Poets; The “Discovery”/The Nation Prize; and grants from the Florida Arts Council and The Ingram Merrill Foundation. His poems have been featured on National Public Radio’s Writers Almanac (read by Garrison Keillor), and his poem, “Packing Plant,” won The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival open competition in Farmington, Connecticut, in 2001, chosen out of 632 entries. His poems have appeared in many leading publications, including The Hudson Review, The Nation, The Paris Review, Poetry, and The Southern Review, and have been widely anthologized. He also reviews poetry for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel. A native Miamian, Peter Schmitt has taught creative writing and literature at The University of Miami since 1986.
