Arranging Stories (University Press of Mississippi, 2022)
Learn more about my book, available through UPM, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.
Between the 1880s and the 1940s, opportunities for southern white women writers increased dramatically, bolstered by readers’ demands for southern stories in northern periodicals. Confined by magazine requirements and social expectations, writers often relied on regional settings and tropes to attract publishers and readers before publishing work in a collection. Selecting and ordering magazine stories for these collections was not arbitrary or dictated by editors, despite a male-dominated publishing industry. Instead, it allowed writers to privilege stories, or to contextualize a story by its proximity to other tales, as a form of social commentary. For Kate Chopin, Ellen Glasgow, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Katherine Anne Porter—the authors featured in this book—publishing a volume of stories enabled them to construct a narrative framework of their own.
Arranging Stories invites readings that complicate how we engage collected works. The book examines correspondence, manuscripts, periodicals, and first editions of collections. Each collection’s textual history serves as a case study for changes in the periodical marketplace and demonstrates how writers negotiated this marketplace to publish stories and garner readership. The book also includes four tables, featuring collected stories’ arrangements and publication histories, and twenty-five illustrations, featuring periodical publications, unpublished letters, and manuscript fragments obtained from nine on-site and digital archives. |
"Drawing heavily on archival materials, including reproductions of many photographs, letters, manuscript pages, and other materials, Arranging Stories is a treasure trove of previously unreleased materials that sheds important light on these authors and their works. It draws attention to the amount of agency that these authors wielded over their work, in ways that we haven't previously considered."
-Monica Carol Miller, author of Being Ugly: Southern Woman Writers and Social Rebellion
-Monica Carol Miller, author of Being Ugly: Southern Woman Writers and Social Rebellion
Publications
Book
Arranging Stories: Framing Social Commentary in Short Story Collections by Southern Women Writers. University Press of Mississippi, 2022.
Peer-Reviewed Journals
"Teaching Writing as a Metacognitive Process." Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education, vol. 11, no. 2, June 2022, article 5, pp. 1-15.
“Reading in the (Local) Archives: Integrating KAS Interdisciplinary Literacy Practices in the K-12 Classroom.” Kentucky English Bulletin, Fall 2020.
“What We Want Students to Remember: Archival Recovery as a Sustainable Critical Praxis.” The New Americanist, vol. 2, no. 4, Summer 2020, pp. 5-28. Co-
authored with Amanda Stuckey.
“What Cannot Be (Re)written: Disentangling Panoptic Structures in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wall-paper’ and Herland.” LLIDS: Language,
Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 2, no. 4, Summer 2019.
“Mapping Spatial Consciousness in Kate Chopin’s Bayou Folk Stories.” South: A Scholarly Journal (formerly The Southern Literary Journal), vol. 48, no. 1, Fall
2015, pp. 108-28.
“Representations of Truth: The Significance of Order in Katherine Anne Porter’s The Old Order Stories.” Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in
Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, vol. 14, no. 2, Aug. 2015, pp. 201-25.
“(Re)Positioning through Remembering and Forgetting in Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘The Source,’ ‘The Journey,’ and ‘The Last Leaf.’” Southern Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of the South, vol. 21, no. 2, Fall/Winter 2014, pp. 75-97.
“Resurrecting Truth in Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘The Fig Tree.’” The Explicator, vol. 72, no. 3, Sept. 2014, pp. 219-23.
“A Circlin’ Buzzard: Positioning in Quentin’s Narrative.” The Faulkner Journal, vol. 27, no. 1, Spring 2013, pp. 65-76.
“Teaching a Writing Strategy for Short Essay Response Assessment: Is It Possible to Level One of the Playing Fields?” NOTES on Teaching English: A Journal of
Pedagogy and Useful Scholarship. The Georgia and Carolinas Affiliate of the College English Association, July 2013.
“The View from the ‘Depth of the Frightful Abyss’: Challenging Archetype in Franҫois Fénelon’s The Adventures of Telemachus and Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya.”
The Quint, An Interdisciplinary Quarterly from the North, vol. 5, no. 2, Mar. 2013, pp. 44-59, Rpt. in Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism: Charlotte Dacre,
Layman Poupard, 2019.
Textbook Contributions
“Organizing Research to Construct a Synthesis Matrix.” Network, Collaborate, Compose: College Writing in the Digital Age. Eds. Joseph Moxley and Jennifer
iYirinec. Aug. 2014.
“What Is a Research Question?” Network, Collaborate, Compose: College Writing in the Digital Age. Eds. Joseph Moxley and Jennifer iYirinec. Aug. 2014.
Editorial Contributions
"Faculty Development for Transparent Teaching and Learning: Perspectives from Scholars-Teachers." Journal of Faculty Development. Co-authored with
Russell Carpenter, Shirley O'Brian, Travis Martin, Clint Pinion, Susan Skees-Hermes, Camille Skubik-Peplaski, and Casey Humphrey, May 2021.
“ESO.” The Study for the Society of Southern Literature, vol. 50, no. 1, July 2016. Co-authored with Kelly Vines, Jennie Lightweis-Goff, Jill Fennell, and William C.
Palmer.
“Year in Conferences: American Literature Association.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, vol. 61, no.1, Spring 2015, pp. 161-96. Co-authored with
Molly Ball, Sarah Oliver, Amanda Stuckey, and Nate Windon.
“The Years’ Work on Katherine Anne Porter: 2008-2013.” Newsletter of the Katherine Anne Porter Society, vol. 15, Oct. 2014, pp. 25-33. Co-authored with
Christine Grogan Alderman.
Arranging Stories: Framing Social Commentary in Short Story Collections by Southern Women Writers. University Press of Mississippi, 2022.
Peer-Reviewed Journals
"Teaching Writing as a Metacognitive Process." Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education, vol. 11, no. 2, June 2022, article 5, pp. 1-15.
“Reading in the (Local) Archives: Integrating KAS Interdisciplinary Literacy Practices in the K-12 Classroom.” Kentucky English Bulletin, Fall 2020.
“What We Want Students to Remember: Archival Recovery as a Sustainable Critical Praxis.” The New Americanist, vol. 2, no. 4, Summer 2020, pp. 5-28. Co-
authored with Amanda Stuckey.
“What Cannot Be (Re)written: Disentangling Panoptic Structures in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wall-paper’ and Herland.” LLIDS: Language,
Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 2, no. 4, Summer 2019.
“Mapping Spatial Consciousness in Kate Chopin’s Bayou Folk Stories.” South: A Scholarly Journal (formerly The Southern Literary Journal), vol. 48, no. 1, Fall
2015, pp. 108-28.
“Representations of Truth: The Significance of Order in Katherine Anne Porter’s The Old Order Stories.” Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in
Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, vol. 14, no. 2, Aug. 2015, pp. 201-25.
“(Re)Positioning through Remembering and Forgetting in Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘The Source,’ ‘The Journey,’ and ‘The Last Leaf.’” Southern Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of the South, vol. 21, no. 2, Fall/Winter 2014, pp. 75-97.
“Resurrecting Truth in Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘The Fig Tree.’” The Explicator, vol. 72, no. 3, Sept. 2014, pp. 219-23.
“A Circlin’ Buzzard: Positioning in Quentin’s Narrative.” The Faulkner Journal, vol. 27, no. 1, Spring 2013, pp. 65-76.
“Teaching a Writing Strategy for Short Essay Response Assessment: Is It Possible to Level One of the Playing Fields?” NOTES on Teaching English: A Journal of
Pedagogy and Useful Scholarship. The Georgia and Carolinas Affiliate of the College English Association, July 2013.
“The View from the ‘Depth of the Frightful Abyss’: Challenging Archetype in Franҫois Fénelon’s The Adventures of Telemachus and Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya.”
The Quint, An Interdisciplinary Quarterly from the North, vol. 5, no. 2, Mar. 2013, pp. 44-59, Rpt. in Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism: Charlotte Dacre,
Layman Poupard, 2019.
Textbook Contributions
“Organizing Research to Construct a Synthesis Matrix.” Network, Collaborate, Compose: College Writing in the Digital Age. Eds. Joseph Moxley and Jennifer
iYirinec. Aug. 2014.
“What Is a Research Question?” Network, Collaborate, Compose: College Writing in the Digital Age. Eds. Joseph Moxley and Jennifer iYirinec. Aug. 2014.
Editorial Contributions
"Faculty Development for Transparent Teaching and Learning: Perspectives from Scholars-Teachers." Journal of Faculty Development. Co-authored with
Russell Carpenter, Shirley O'Brian, Travis Martin, Clint Pinion, Susan Skees-Hermes, Camille Skubik-Peplaski, and Casey Humphrey, May 2021.
“ESO.” The Study for the Society of Southern Literature, vol. 50, no. 1, July 2016. Co-authored with Kelly Vines, Jennie Lightweis-Goff, Jill Fennell, and William C.
Palmer.
“Year in Conferences: American Literature Association.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, vol. 61, no.1, Spring 2015, pp. 161-96. Co-authored with
Molly Ball, Sarah Oliver, Amanda Stuckey, and Nate Windon.
“The Years’ Work on Katherine Anne Porter: 2008-2013.” Newsletter of the Katherine Anne Porter Society, vol. 15, Oct. 2014, pp. 25-33. Co-authored with
Christine Grogan Alderman.
Awards, Fellowships, Scholarships, & Grants
Teaching Awards
Libraries Faculty Partnership Award, Eastern Kentucky University, April 2022
High-Impact Practice Teaching Award, Eastern Kentucky University, April 2021
“High Five for Student Achievement” Award, Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning, Eastern Kentucky University, May 2019
Honorable Mention (second highest honor) in the Arts and Humanities Category, Provost's Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of South Florida, 2017
Fellowships & Research Awards
Dean’s Excellence in Research & Creative Activities Award, College of Letters, Arts, & Social Sciences, Eastern Kentucky University, 2023
Bluegrass Academic Leadership Academy Fellowship, 2022
Leland Hawes Research Award, University of South Florida, 2018
Carolyn L. Cooley Graduate Award in American Literature, University of South Florida, 2017
Dissertation Completion Fellowship, University of South Florida, 2017
Carolyn L. Cooley Graduate Award in American Literature, University of South Florida, 2016
Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South Fellowship, University of Alabama, 2015
Study for the Society of American Women Writers Graduate Travel Award, 2015
Love of Learning Award, Phi Kappa Phi, 2014
Scholarships
Jack B. Moore Memorial Scholarship, University of South Florida, 2014
Bailey Scholarship, Mary Baldwin College, 1992-1996
Grants
President’s Research & Scholarship Fund (PRSF) Travel Grant, Eastern Kentucky University, 2018
College of Letters, Arts, & Social Sciences (CLASS) Faculty Development Grant, Eastern Kentucky University, 2018
Modern Language Association Travel Grant, 2017
Southern American Studies Association Travel Grant, 2015
Conference Presentation Grant, University of South Florida, 2013, 2014, 2015
Graduate Student Travel Grant, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012
Libraries Faculty Partnership Award, Eastern Kentucky University, April 2022
High-Impact Practice Teaching Award, Eastern Kentucky University, April 2021
“High Five for Student Achievement” Award, Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning, Eastern Kentucky University, May 2019
Honorable Mention (second highest honor) in the Arts and Humanities Category, Provost's Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of South Florida, 2017
Fellowships & Research Awards
Dean’s Excellence in Research & Creative Activities Award, College of Letters, Arts, & Social Sciences, Eastern Kentucky University, 2023
Bluegrass Academic Leadership Academy Fellowship, 2022
Leland Hawes Research Award, University of South Florida, 2018
Carolyn L. Cooley Graduate Award in American Literature, University of South Florida, 2017
Dissertation Completion Fellowship, University of South Florida, 2017
Carolyn L. Cooley Graduate Award in American Literature, University of South Florida, 2016
Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South Fellowship, University of Alabama, 2015
Study for the Society of American Women Writers Graduate Travel Award, 2015
Love of Learning Award, Phi Kappa Phi, 2014
Scholarships
Jack B. Moore Memorial Scholarship, University of South Florida, 2014
Bailey Scholarship, Mary Baldwin College, 1992-1996
Grants
President’s Research & Scholarship Fund (PRSF) Travel Grant, Eastern Kentucky University, 2018
College of Letters, Arts, & Social Sciences (CLASS) Faculty Development Grant, Eastern Kentucky University, 2018
Modern Language Association Travel Grant, 2017
Southern American Studies Association Travel Grant, 2015
Conference Presentation Grant, University of South Florida, 2013, 2014, 2015
Graduate Student Travel Grant, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012
Conference Presentations
Plenary Speaker
"Recovering Narrative: Selection & Arrangement in the 'Invisible, but Urgently Present.'" Kentucky Philological Association, Danville, KY, March 3, 2023.
Refereed Paper Presentations
“Repurposing the Epigraph: Transforming Literary Tradition for a 21st-Century Young Adult Readership.” College English Association, Atlanta, GA, Mar. 21-
24, 2023.
“Examining the Epigraph in YA Historical Fiction.” Summit on the Teaching & Research of Young Adult Literature, Oklahoma State University, OK, Feb. 29-
Mar. 1, 2023.
“Cultivating Relationship-Rich Learning through Autocritography.” Pedagogicon, Richmond, KY, May 19-10, 2022. Co-authored with Kennedy Carpenter,
Jonathon Collins, and Sarah King.
"Preserving an Archive: Young Adult Historical Fiction as an Understudied Context." Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference (SSAWW),
Baltimore, MD, November 4-7, 2021.
“Slow but Sustainable: Small DH as a Pedagogical Tool,” Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA), Baltimore, MD, November 12-15, 2020. Co- authored with Amanda Stuckey.
“Sustaining a Visible Identity: Selection and Arrangement as a Metacognitive Process in Composition Courses,” South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Conference (SAMLA), Atlanta, GA, November 15-17, 2019.
“Collaborative Relationships: Student Investment as a Praxis for Recovering American Women Writers,” Society for the Study of American Women Writers
Conference (SSAWW), Denver, CO, November 7-11, 2018. Co-authored with Amanda Stuckey.
“Repurposing the Sentimental: How Archives Illumine the Use of a Literary Tradition to Engender Social Reform,” C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century
Americanists, Albuquerque, NM, March 22-25, 2018.
“A Tale of Two Archives: Katherine Anne Porter and Ellen Glasgow,” Modern Language Association Convention (MLA), Philadelphia, PA, January 5-8, 2017.
“‘Not Conscious of Using Those Feet’: Motherhood as a Conscious Lens in Buchi Emecheta’s In the Ditch and The Joys of Motherhood,” South Atlantic Modern
Language Association Conference (SAMLA), Jacksonville, FL, November 4-6, 2016.
“Richmond in New York, New York in Richmond: The Ghosts of Ellen Glasgow’s The Shadowy Third and Other Stories,” Society for the Study of
Southern Literature Conference (SSSL), Boston, MA, March 10-12, 2016.
“Writing One’s Self Out: Subverting Captivity in Sociohistorical Narratives,” Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference (SSAWW),
Philadelphia, PA, November 4-8, 2015.
“‘I Won’t!’: (Re)constructing Voice in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s Stories,” Southern American Studies Association Conference (SASA), Atlanta, GA, February
16-19, 2015.
“What Cannot Be Rewritten: The Presence of the Panopticon in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Herland,” South Atlantic Modern
Language Association Conference (SAMLA), Atlanta, GA, November 7-9, 2014.
“Mapping Memory Boundaries at the Site of the Plantation Home in Kate Chopin’s Bayou Folk Stories,” American Literature Association Conference (ALA),
Washington, D.C., May 22-25, 2014.
“Narrative Decision, Cognitive Implication: Legend, Memory, and Truth in Katherine Anne Porter’s The Old Order Stories,” Society for the Study of Southern
Literature Conference (SSSL), Arlington, VA, March 27-29, 2014.
“‘My Garden Does Deceive’: Confinement in the Gardens of Eudora Welty’s ‘A Curtain of Green’ and Peter Taylor’s ‘A Walled Garden,’” South Atlantic Modern
Language Association Conference (SAMLA), Atlanta, GA, November 8-10, 2013.
“Reading Katherine Anne Porter’s The Old Order as a Reconstructive Process of Memory,” American Literature Association Conference (ALA), Boston, MA,
May 23-26, 2013.
“Retrospective Perception: A Construct of Gender and Culture through Memory in Katherine Anne Porter’s The Old Order,” Southern Women Writers
Conference, Rome, GA, September 20-23, 2012.