Axis Special Issue: Imagining the Decolonizing Writing Center

Lindsey Albracht, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) is a Lecturer of English at Queens College. She currently teaches undergraduate classes on writing, and previously worked in interdisciplinary faculty education, writing centers, and in the field of TESOL. Her research considers what abolitionist movements teach us about the wider ecologies that shape language reception practices. Her work appears in Journal of American Studies in Italy, and her forthcoming work will appear in the edited collection, Racing Translingualism in Composition: Toward a Race-Conscious Translingualism, and in Recollections from an Uncommon Time: 4C20 Documentarian Tales, Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) Series.

Alyssa Bernadette Cahoy is a Rice University undergraduate consultant working at the Center for Academic and Professional Communication. She is a pre-public health student double majoring in Health Sciences and English (area of specialization in Science, Medicine, and Environment), and minoring in Medical Humanities. Serving as her residential college’s Head Academic Fellow, she hopes to emphasize the importance of multi-modal literacy and public-facing communication in all disciplines. Alyssa cares deeply about accessibility, so her research interests lie within the translational humanities, community engagement, and sociohistorical determinants of health.

Adam Daut is the Coordinator, Sr. for the Writing Center and Graduate Writing Center at Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus. His research has focused on tutor training, curriculum, and graduate support. His work has appeared in Axis: The Praxis Blog and Connecting Writing Center Across Borders, A Blog of WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship.

Albert C. DeCiccio, Ph.D. is Coordinator of Salem State University’s Mary G. Walsh Writing Center since August 2019. He has worked in higher education since 1978. He was President of NWCA (now IWCA) and co-editor of The Writing Center Journal. He received the Muriel Harris Outstanding Service Award. He has written about writing centers, peer tutoring, pedagogy, leadership, and spirituality.

Bonnie Devet, Ph.D. is a professor of English at the College of Charleston (South Carolina) and directs the CofC Writing Lab. She also teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in grammar, technical writing, freshman composition, advanced composition, the theory and practice of writing labs, and the teaching of composition. She has delivered numerous conference presentations and has published widely on the training of consultants as well as on teaching grammar, technical communication, and freshman composition. She is also the recipient of the Southeastern Writing Center Association Achievement Award.

Tyler Gardner, Ph.D. directs the writing center at Brigham Young University, where he is an assistant professor in the English Department. Prior to BYU, he worked in writing centers at Cal Poly, Holy Cross College, and the University of Notre Dame.

Douglas S. Kern, Ph.D. is a Professor of English at Valencia College in Florida. His cross-disciplinary research focuses on representations of murder, killing, and death in the revolutionary drama of Amiri Baraka and language plurality within intercultural communication and composition. He currently serves as an Academic Advisor for Gale’s Contemporary Literary Criticism and Drama Criticism series, while his additional publications can be found in the forthcoming book, CounterStories from the Writing Center, New Perspectives in Edward Albee Studies (Volume #4 – Edward Albee: Influence), Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance, and Praxis: A Writing Center Journal.

Janice Lark, M.A. is an academic coach in Writing, Reading, Speech Assistance (WRSA) at College of DuPage in Illinois. During her career in higher education, she has worked as a reading specialist, writing instructor, and workshop presenter. She has a special interest in working with diverse populations and has taught various levels of reading, writing, listening, and speaking for English Language Learners; she also enjoys serving students through online and in-person conversation circles to support their language development.

Matthew Louie is a graduate student at San Diego State University studying Rhetoric and Writing Studies with a specialization in the teaching of writing. He was a former lead consultant at the University of California, Merced’s University Writing Center. At UC Merced, Matthew led multiple writing center projects including creating the University Writing Center’s first student-focused mission statement along with a consultant-led assessment project to help best communicate the writing center’s practices to students. Matthew hopes to continue amplifying marginalized/oppressed voices, especially those from his home island of Guam, to raise awareness for Indigenous issues and challenge colonial legacies in writing centers and writing classrooms.

A. Poythress, M.F.A. is a non-binary, lesbian author of surreal horror/fantasy and literary scholar from the South. They received their MFA in Fiction from Columbia College in Chicago and are currently enrolled in Oklahoma State University’s Creative Writing/Fiction PhD. Outside of their creative work, AP’s primary scholarship is in the hidden queer roots of literary horror, the current queer revolution in horror writing, and queer writing center studies.

Dani Putney, M.F.A. is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx, and neurodivergent poet, nonfiction writer, and scholar from Sacramento, California. Okay Donkey Press published their debut poetry collection, Salamat sa Intersectionality, in 2021. Their poetry chapbook, Dela Torre, was released by Sundress Publications in 2022. They received their MFA in Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women and are presently an English PhD student at Oklahoma State University. Beyond creative writing, their research interests lie in Southeast and East Asian art history, nineteenth-century American poetry, and writing center studies. Before pursuing their doctoral degree, they held various positions in journalism and marketing.

Ella Raynor, M.A. runs the Lake Nona Campus Writing Center at Valencia College, where she is dedicated to upholding the values expressed in their Statement on Linguistic Justice, including centering student agency, voice, and experiences; valuing linguistic diversity in all its varieties; investigating tacit beliefs about the superiority of “standard” English; and inviting dialogue on linguistic justice and its intersections with racism and other forms of social injustice.

Tristan Rebe, M.A. is the Coordinator, Sr. for the Writing Center and Graduate Writing Center at Arizona State University’s West campus. His research has focused on writing center studies, sensory studies, and translation studies. His work has appeared in Connecting Writing Center Across Borders, A Blog of WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship.

Katie Watkins, M.A. coordinates multilingual writing support in the writing center at Brigham Young University. She holds an MA in Linguistics and has several years of experience as an ESL instructor. Her work has been published in The Reading Matrix, Language and Education, and the edited volume, Refugee Education Across the Lifespan.

Brie Winnega Reamer is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation examines disability-centered care ethics in the memoirs of professional nurses. She works as an Assistant Program Coordinator at the University Writing Center.

Lisa E. Wright, M.A. is a PhD candidate in English Creative Writing Nonfiction, at Oklahoma State University. She currently serves as an Assistant Director for OSU’s writing center and First Year Composition program. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in Hippocampus Magazine, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, and The Writing Center Journal. Her dissertation project “Gems for the Fire: A Memoir” chronicles her home births with her husband as her midhusband. It further examines Black women’s birthing choices, with a particular focus on the delegitimation of Black midwives. Her essays focus on creating safe birthing spaces for birthing Black women inside and outside of medical institutions. www.lisaewright.com