Join the English Department as we celebrate recently published creative writing (and recently completed MFA and PhD degrees in creative writing) by GRCC English Department Faculty.
We are a department that writes!
Event details
Tuesday, March 25 – 6:30-8 p.m. – GRCC ATC Piazza
- 6:15 p.m. - Time to mingle and visit the buffet table.
- 6:30 p.m. - Readings begin, featuring five GRCC faculty writers, listed below.
- 7:15 p.m. - Q & A with Authors: On Writing and a Writer’s Education.
After sharing their work, faculty readers will discuss their writing as well as the education and life of a writer.
A buffet of snacks and beverages will be served.
The 2025 reading features poetry and prose by:
- Alyssa Jewell – Poetry
- Maryann Lesert – Fiction
- Rachel Lutwick-Deaner – Creative Nonfiction
- Mursalata Muhammad – Poetry & Creative Nonfiction
- Geoff Peck - Fiction
This event is sponsored by the GRCC English Department and Transfer Bridges to the Humanities, U-M.
Author information
Alyssa Jewell
Alyssa Jewell has been teaching ESL, creative writing, and composition courses at GRCC for fourteen years. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Poetry in December 2024 from Western Michigan University where she was the winner of the All-University Award in Creative Research and Scholarship. She edits poetry for Waxwing and coordinates the Poets in Print reading series for the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center. Her recent poems have appeared in Cherry Tree, The Shore, Witness, and Virginia Quarterly Review, and she has received support from the Vermont Studio Center.
Maryann Lesert
Recent publications: Land Marks, a Novel (She Writes Press, April 2024).
Bio: Maryann Lesert's first novel, Base Ten (Feminist Press, 2009) followed an astrophysicist’s quest for self among the dunes and the stars. Land Marks (She Writes, 2024) is based on two years of research on fracking in Michigan’s state forests. Her plays have been published by New Issues and in Smith & Kraus’s Best Ten Minute series. Her articles have appeared in EcoWatch and In These Times, and she is a regular presenter on art and activism. Maryann teaches composition and creative writing at GRCC. You can find her at maryannlesert.com.
Rachel Lutwick-Deaner
Rachel Lutwick-Deaner enjoys a bookish life. She has earned degrees from Colgate University, North Carolina State University, and Queens University of Charlotte. She currently teaches writing and literature at Grand Rapids Community College. Rachel delights in writing essays that challenge and affirm her readers, and her ultimate goal is to make people laugh, even uncomfortably. Rachel’s recent publications can be found at Chaotic Merge, Door=Jar, and Story Sanctum. Her book reviews can be found at Southern Review of Books and on Instagram @professor.ld.
Mursalata Muhammad
Mursalata Muhammad’s writing is deeply rooted in her experiences as an educator whose early life was marked by various academic environments, from home and private schooling to graduating from a public school in Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Muhammad's commitment to social justice, intersectionality, and historical consciousness informs her teaching, writing (creative, nonfiction, and scholarly), and research perspective in ways that emphasize the importance of humanizing educational practices. Recent publications include the poem “BG” (2024) and the essay “Ideologies and Evolution in Representing Malcolm X for Young Readers” forthcoming in 2025 from Third World Press.
Geoff Peck
Geoff Peck grew up in Norman, Oklahoma. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh and his PhD in English from the University of North Dakota before returning to Pittsburgh to finish writing City of Clans, a novel forthcoming (2025) from the University of Iowa Press. He lives with his wife Abbey in Grand Rapids, MI, where he teaches at Grand Rapids Community College.
