Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a BA from Dillard University. The recipient of a Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, he has served as poetry editor at Gulf Coast and assistant poetry editor at Callaloo. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, New England Review, Oxford American, and several other journals and anthologies. Brown teaches creative writing as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego. New Issues Poetry & Prose published his first book PLEASE.

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Dennis M. Clausen, Ph.D., has been a member of the University of San Diego faculty since 1972. Clausen has taught undergraduate American literature courses with a special emphasis on authors who write about American small towns.

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Evelyn Diaz Cruz is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts with experience in writing, directing, and acting. Originally from the Bronx, New York, Professor Cruz's study and practice of theatre is focused on empowering communities by addressing issues of social justice through art. Her non-traditional approach to theatre garnered her the KPBS 2008 Hispanic Heritage Month Local Hero Award for her contributions to the San Diego community. She is the recipient of USD's 2009 Innovations in Experiential Education Award. She is a member of the Los Angeles Association of Playwrights and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.

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Peter Kanelos taught at Stanford and is now assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of San Diego, where he teaches courses in Shakespeare, drama and creative writing. Professor Kanelos has published creative work and reviews in Poetry, The Gingko Tree Review, Verse and other places. He has been the recipient of an Academy of American Poets award on two occasions and was named a Professor of the Year at the University of San Diego, 2004-2005. Dr. Kanelos has also served as the coordinator for the Lindsay J. Cropper Center for Creative Writing.

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Gail Perez, Ph.D., came to the university in 1992 to teach American ethnic literature.  Since that time, she has co-founded  the Ethnic Studies major and now has a joint appointment with Ethnic Studies.  She teaches courses in U.S. women of color,  multicultural California, introduction to ethnic studies, and creative writing.  She has advised MEChA, has given the Chicano Graduation Keynote, and has been nominated as a USD Woman of Impact three times.  Her research interests include pedagogy, social space and race, and literature by women of color.

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Fred Miller Robinson, Ph.D., served as chair of the English Department from 1991 until 2005.  From 2005-06 he was interim director of the Theatre Arts program, and beginning in 2009 he will be director of the Music program.  He has taught a variety of undergraduate courses in modern literature, including Modern Poetry, Modern Drama, Narrative Theory and Writing Autobiography, and a text course in modern drama to the USD/Old Globe MFA students.  His research focus has shifted from comic theory to cultural studies: a social history of The Man in the Bowler Hat and, currently, the interculture of Ireland and the U.S. Robinson also taught for a year (each) at the Universite de Haute Bretagne in Rennes, France, and the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK.

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