Faculty for Writing & Publishing Major

J.C. Ellefson

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Erik Esckilsen

Biography

Erik Esckilsen came to Champlain College from the publishing industry, where he worked as a writer and editor. Today he teaches writing-intensive courses in a range of subjects, emphasizing art and digital culture, and remains active as an essayist, fiction writer, journalist, and scholar.

Curriculum Vitae

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Rebecca Holt

Biography

Becky began her career in journalism, where she was an award-winning newspaper and online editor for 20 years. She then spent a decade as a nonprofit development and communications director. Since 2016, Becky has helped nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals (youth and adults) learn how to share their stories through interactive workshops, personalized trainings, and one-on-one coaching. She also writes creative fiction for young adults. Becky has a Bachelor’s of Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Distinctions & Awards

Gannett Supervisor of the Year (2008)
Missouri Lifestyle: National Award for General Excellence, First Place (2008)
Vermont Press Association: Outstanding Website, Daily (2008)
Gannett Chairman Award (2007)
Missouri Lifestyle: National Award for General Excellence, Second Place (2007)
Missouri Lifestyle: National Award for General Excellence, First Place (2004)

Professional & Scholastic Affiliations

• Member of Griffiths Leadership Society for Women, University of Missouri Alumni Association
• Church Street Marketplace Commissioner, City of Burlington, Vermont (2019-present; current Vice Chair)

Curriculum Vitae

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Favorite Quote

“The sun will rise and set regardless. What we choose to do with the light while it’s here is up to us. Journey wisely.”

—Alexandra Elle

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Mark Johnson

Biography

Mark Johnson has had a 40-year career in Vermont journalism as a reporter, editor and talk show host. Johnson has worked at the Eagle Times in Springfield, the Burlington Free Press, the Vanguard Press, VTDigger.org and Seven Days as a reporter, editor and columnist. For 25 years, he hosted an influential political and general interest two-hour daily talk show on WKDR and WDEV radio stations. He also served as a regular panelist and guest host on Vermont Public Television’s weekly roundtable news show “Vermont This Week.” He and his wife, Lauren-Glenn Davitian, the founder of Town Meeting Television, and their daughter, Stella Rose, live in Burlington.

Distinctions & Awards

Vermont Association of Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award 2012

Favorite Quote

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

—Steven Covey

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Sheila Liming

Biography

Sheila Liming, PhD, came to Champlain in 2020 and settled into teaching an array of classes in writing and publishing. She is the author of three books: What a Library Means to a Woman (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), Office (Bloomsbury, 2020) and, most recently, Hanging Out (Melville House, 2023), and the editor of one, a new version of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (W.W. Norton, 2022). Her writing has appeared widely in venues like The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Globe and Mail, LitHub, and elsewhere, while her work has been reviewed and featured in People magazine, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She received her PhD from Carnegie Mellon University and, in her spare time, she continues to play the Scottish bagpipes (just as she did as part of the Carnegie Mellon University pipe band).

Distinctions & Awards

Maryland Humanities — State-wide Common Read finalist (HANGING OUT / 2023)
Reader’s Digest Most Anticipated Book of 2023 (HANGING OUT / 2023)
LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2023 (HANGING OUT / 2023)
Teaching Excellence Award (North Dakota University System / 2018)
Whiting Foundation — Fellowship Finalist (2018)

Publications & Abstracts

• Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time (2023)
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (2022)
• Office (2020)
• What a Library Means to a Woman (2020)

Professional & Scholastic Affiliations

• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP)
• Edith Wharton Society (EWS)
• Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP)

Curriculum Vitae

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Recommended Reading, Listening & Viewing

• Reading: I wrote my first book about the author Edith Wharton, who was a chronicler of Gilded Age privilege in America. People often ask me where to start with Wharton’s oeuvre and I like to recommend her short novel SUMMER (1917), which is page-turner dealing with rural politics, sex, gender, and class inequality.
• Reading: One of my specialties is gothic fiction and gothic storytelling. Some outstanding recent work in this genre comes from the Vermont writer Melanie Finn. Her novels THE HARE (2021) and THE UNDERNEATH (2018) blend a feminist perspective with classic features of the gothic genre.
• Reading: When you get serious about studying writing, you come into contact with other writers, and some of those connections turn out to be long-ranging. For instance, I went to college with the Asiya Wadud, a powerhouse poet whose collections SYNCOPE and CROSSLIGHT FOR YOUNGBIRD will challenge and provoke any aspiring writer.

Favorite Quote

“Sit as little as possible; give credence to no thought that is not born in the open air and accompanied by free movement in which the muscles do not also celebrate a feast.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche, ECCE HOMO

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Robin Perlah

Biography

Robin Perlah currently serves as Chair of the Creative Studio (home to Champlain’s creative art and design majors), Program Director for the graphic design (BFA) and interaction design (BS) majors, and is an Associate Professor in the Division of Communications and Creative Media at Champlain College.

In her time at Champlain, Perlah also served as the Academic Director for the Emergent Media Center, where she helped shape the creative vision for the campus-based interactive media studio. Additionally, Robin served as Assistant Dean for the CCM division, interim Program Director for creative media (BFA), and Program Director for the master’s programs in emergent media (MS and MFA). She has taught a wide range of courses in the areas of interaction design, photography, graphic design, and media theory, serving both undergraduate and graduate students. Currently, Robin teaches undergraduate courses in design history as well as photography, image-making, and visual design.

Perlah’s current art practice is based on a persistent interest in the photographic image, both still and moving, as it is transformed by digitality. Her work deals with the ambiguity of memory, the intersection between image capture (both analog and digital) and the methods of processing and presenting images, and how generative art and data mutations can reveal layers of complexity.

Before working at Champlain College, Robin was the co-chair of the Design & Creative Media program at the Center for Technology, Essex, and ran several community art programs to support young people through art-mentoring relationships and other activities. Prior to that, she had a long career as an art teacher and, professional photographer and photo editor, specializing in commercial, portrait, and event photography as well as fine-art printing.

Robin is a site evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), is part of the volunteer board for PechaKucha Night (PKN) Burlington, and recently rejoined the board of trustees for the Vermont Arts Council as board secretary after finishing her last term as Vice-Chair in 2019. Additionally, she serves as the co-director for the Technology & Design Institute at Governor’s Institutes of Vermont. Robin earned a master of fine arts in emergent media from Champlain College, a bachelor of science in art education from the University of Vermont, and studied commercial and fine art photography at the New England School of Photography.

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Tanya Lee Stone

Biography

Dr. Tanya Lee Stone started teaching at Champlain in 2008. As a professor, she encourages students to “prioritize process over product,” and “embrace the power of play” in their work. As a former editor and current author, Stone brings long-held connections in the publishing world into her classrooms, inviting authors, artists, editors, and agents to engage directly with students. She teaches Professional Pathways to Publishing, Intro to Writing and Publishing, Writing Children’s Literature, Middle-Grade and Young Adult Literature, and others.

Stone is the author of more than 100 books for children and young adults. She is best known for telling true stories of people who have been missing from our histories, with themes of empowering girls and women threaded throughout her body of work.

Her books have earned many awards, including an NAACP Image Award, Sibert Medal, Golden Kite, Boston Globe-Horn Book, NCTE Orbis Pictus, and NPR Best Books. Her YA novel, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, is an ALA Top 100 Banned Books of the Decade. Stone’s articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Horn Book, and Publishers Weekly. She often speaks on topics of writing, nonfiction, and censorship.

Some of Tanya Lee Stone’s Books

• Remembering Rosalind Franklin: The Discovery of the Double Helix Structure of DNA (Little Brown/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2024)
• Peace is a Chain Reaction: How World War II Japanese Balloon Bombs Brought People of Two Nations Together (Candlewick Press, 2022)
• Pass Go and Collect $200: The Real Story of How Monopoly Was Invented (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2018)
• Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time (Penguin Random House/Wendy Lamb Books 2017)
• The House that Jane Built: A Story about Jane Addams (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books 2015)
• Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles (Candlewick, 2014)
• Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2013)
• Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream (Candlewick, 2010)
• The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll’s History and Her Impact on Us (Viking, 2010)
• Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2008)
• Sandy’s Circus: A Story about Alexander Calder (Viking, 2008)
• A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl (Penguin Random House/Wendy Lamb Books, 2006)

Distinctions & Awards

NAACP Image Award, Robert F. Sibert Medal

Recommended Reading, Listening & Viewing

• Gilbert, Elizabeth. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. Artists, writers, creative folks of any kind–have this book on hand. You won’t regret it. There is nothing earth-shattering in here but it is filled with beautiful reminders and nudges to honor your own process and get unstuck when you feel stuck.
• Bayles, David & Orland, Ted. Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. I have given this book to more people I can count. It’s one of those books you need on hand whenever you are experiencing imposter syndrome or feeling any pangs of “I’m not good enough” to create your art–whatever form it takes.
• Edited by Marcus, Leonard. Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom.
  This book contains a collection of letters that the innovative and inimitable editor Ursula Nordstrom sent to artists and writers she worked with over many decades. This collection lets us in to the often unseen world of communication and process that happens in that ever-important relationship between editor and artist.

Curriculum Vitae

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Favorite Quote

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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William Stratton

Biography

Bill has been teaching at Champlain for 5 years now, and enjoys the classes, students, and faculty he is lucky enough to interact with.

Publications & Abstracts

I have scores of poems published, and two books in print.

Recommended Reading, Listening & Viewing

I am perhaps biased, but I enjoy reading a lot of poetry, science fiction, fantasy, and CNF. It’s hard to recommend only one or two, but I’m happy to expound given more space and time.

I also quite like audio books, where the performers make a big difference. Ray Porter is a favorite, as is Steven Pacey.

I’m pickier with my movies and TV shows, but I recently re-watched Mr. Robot and enjoyed it even more on a second viewing.

Favorite Quote

“In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

—T.S. Eliot

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