New Mexico State University, Department of English

Reviewer's Name:

Dorine Jennette

Review Date

May 12, 2009

Year of Graduation:

2003

Review Title:

How I found my tribe

Full Review of the Program:

There's so much to say about this program that I don't know where to start. I see that others have covered the location and teaching opportunities, etc., so I'll say this: One test of a graduate program is how its students thrive after they leave. I graduated from NMSU six years ago, and what I learned there is everywhere in my current writing and working life. I am no rock star, but I am still living a writing-centered life, no mean feat for the non-independently-wealthy, and NMSU has played a huge role in this. I applied for my PhD (now complete) with a writing sample based on my work at NMSU. I've made a so-far-successful (fingers crossed!) launch at a post-grad-school career in publishing based on my start via an internship for Puerto del Sol. PdS offered me substantive editing experience that allowed me to work for Verse magazine and to compete for editing internships with the Georgia Review and the University of Georgia Press, and I now work full time as a freelance copyeditor for university presses such as U. Pitt. Most importantly, my forthcoming poetry collection, Grace by Degrees (National Poetry Review Press, 2010) includes some revised pages from my thesis, which Connie Voisine helped me craft with infinite wisdom and patience.

NMSU gave me my first experience of being part of a community dedicated to literary study and writing craft. The writer-teachers and writer-students there encouraged what I was doing right and gently challenged my silly aesthetic prejudices and limitations, and I am grateful for it.

NMSU faculty members have published astonishing new work over the past few years. You'd be crazy not to apply!