Writing Center Staff

Rebecca Fremo

Rebecca FremoEducation: Ph.D. in English with Rhetoric and Composition emphasis, Ohio State University; M.A. in English with African American Literature emphasis, Virginia Tech; B.A. in English with Secondary Education certification, Virginia Tech.
Hometown: Richmond, Virginia
Interests: Gardening, writing poetry, biking with the kids
Favorite Writers: Gloria Naylor, Terry Tempest Williams, David Sedaris
Courses I Teach: First Term Seminar, Writing Creative Nonfiction, Academic Writing, Adolescent Literature and Literacy, Art of Interpretation, Senior Seminar
Why I Love to Write: Writing is a kind of self-fashioning. I can use writing to construct any kind of authority for myself that I wish. It's also a great way to figure out what I'm thinking.

Andrew Grace 

Abby Travis

GRADUATION DATE: May 2010 Abby
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): English with a writing emphasis; Management minor
HOMETOWN: Eden Prairie, MN
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: I am the Managing Editor of Firethorne, the Gustavus Journal of Literary and Graphic Arts. Writing and improving written work are two of my passions.
I am a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, and am also the Vice President of the Gustavus Equestrian Team. I also write book reviews for Rain Taxi Review of Books.
FAVORITE AUTHOR: Lately I've been enjoying Tony Hoagland and Richard Brautigan, but I also love Kurt Vonnegut, Milan Kundera, and Flannery O'Connor.
FAVORITE BOOK: The Road (Cormac McCarthy), The Unbearable Lightness of Being & The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (both by Milan Kundera), Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
FAVORITE CLASS: Poetry of Protest, any creative writing class
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: My fingers (applicable to both handwriting and typing!)
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Anything creative (poetry, short story, nonfiction
essay), but I also like literary analysis.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: I do a lot of brainstorming, either by thinking a lot
(for a couple of days), freewriting, or scratching out some notes. Then I try to organize
my thoughts, usually in an informal way (think scribbles in various locations on a sheet
of paper), and then develop my thesis. After that, I just write.

Alison Oppenheimer--not tutoring sp 2010

GRADUATION DATE: 2010Alison Oppenheimer
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): English and secondary education
HOMETOWN: Cincinnati, Ohio
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Study Buddies, Queers & Allies, reading whenever the opportunity presents itself
FAVORITE AUTHOR: Jane Austen, Jasper Fforde, Charles Dickens
FAVORITE BOOK: Pride and Prejudice, The Well of Lost Plots
FAVORITE CLASS: Adolescent Literature with the fabulous Becky Fremo!
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: The text itself! In the words of my amazing high school English teacher, "Take us to the text!"
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Literary analysis - especially when I get to explore a super cool detail that has big implications for the text.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: I sit down on the floor, spread out all the stuff I need,
open a word document, and just started typing out everything that comes into my head.
Organization comes later - it's more important to just get the ideas out before they flit away again.

Azra Halilovic

Azra GRADUATION DATE: Spring 2010
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): English major with a writing emphasis / Music and Spanish minors
HOMETOWN:I'm originally from Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina… but I'm really a nomad, and currently reside in Minnetonka.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: piano lessons and accompaniment, voice, Lucia Singers, Sigma Tau Delta, Sigma Delta Pi, Outskirtz Ultimate Frisbee
FAVORITE AUTHOR: I love American authors (both from the North and South), like Mark Twain and Gabriel García Márquez.
FAVORITE BOOK: One Hundred Years of Solitude. I also like to keep Walden close by.  Oh, and I also love a good depressing story, like The Metamorphosis.
FAVORITE CLASS: Creative Writing and Intro to Christian Thought.
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: My own voice—funny how useful it can be… I’ll also turn to friends and fellow tutors because another pair of eyes and ears is always helpful.
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Literary analysis, but creative nonfiction is growing on me.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER:  I start analytical papers with outlines and play around with arguments until I get a strong thesis, at which point I work on arranging, integrating, and synthesizing them. (By the way, I love structure and organization.) With creative writing, I’ve been trying to free write as much as I can, and then go back to piece things together.  That way, I can get any possibly good ideas down.

Chelsea Kramer

Chelsea KramerGRADUATION DATE: 2010
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): Biology Major, English Minor
HOMETOWN: St. Peter, Minnesota
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Lucia Singers, International Cultures Club, Crossroads
FAVORITE AUTHOR: I think it’s impossible to put one author above all the rest when there is so much phenomenal work that has been written. I love reading the work of any author who can speak of human experience in a way that challenges the mind and restores the soul…. with beauty and of truth
FAVORITE BOOK: There are so many, it’s impossible to pick! Right now some of my favorites include The God of Small Things, Heart of Darkness, The Things They Carried, Pride and Prejudice, The Prophet, Anthem, Ceremony, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and childhood classics such as A Little Princess, Harry Potter, the Little House books, A Series of Unfortunate Events and almost anything by Dr. Seuss. The list goes on! And it is changing all the time.
FAVORITE CLASS: Both Modern Fiction and the J-term class, Jane Austen: Fiction and Film
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: Mechanical pencil and a good old-fashioned notebook.
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Analytical research mixed with explorative theory. Anything creative!
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: First I mull it over. Then I write down all the ideas that I have had (or that are coming to my head while I write) on a piece of notebook paper, scrambling to jot down ideas as one thing leads to another, my pencil looping and circling, writing every which way all over the page, using lots of arrows and squiggly lines to connect the thoughts to each other.

Kaitie O'Bryan

GRADUATION DATE: May 2010 Kaitie
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): Mathematics and Studio Art
HOMETOWN: Waukesha, WI
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Study Buddies, Proclaim, IM Volleyball, Walleyball and Softball
FAVORITE BOOK: Catcher in the Rye
FAVORITE CLASS: Painting and Introduction to Computer Science
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL:I am very guilty of using shift+F7 (AKA the thesaurus). All good things must be in moderation though!
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Political Science Papers are my favorite! I love learning things through reading other people's papers.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: Sometimes I make lists of ideas I have and organize them into a way I can make an argument out of them. I pick the strongest ideas that I have the strongest evidence on and string together a thesis. Other times, I just sit down and start typing out my thoughts until an awesome idea emerges.

Liz Winslow

GRADUATION DATE: December 2010 Liz
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): Music Education with Honors in Composition
HOMETOWN: Denver, CO
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Gustavus Wind Orchestra, Gold Woodwind Quintet, Study Buddies
FAVORITE AUTHOR: Jane Austen - best chick lit novelist of all time!
FAVORITE BOOK: Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen of course), Running in the Family (Michael Ondaatje), and Beyond Basketball (Mike Krzyzewski)
FAVORITE CLASS: Music Theory III and History of Western Music I
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: Thesaurus - I love colorful vocabulary!
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: I have a love/hate relationship with research papers. They require so much intensive work yet are incredibly rewarding once it's all put
together.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: I check my email, check facebook, grab a snack, chat
with my roommates, and eventually start with an outline - usually around midnight.


Rebekah Schulz

Rebekah SchulzGRADUATION DATE: May 2010
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): Communication Arts/Literature Teaching Major (that means English and Secondary Education.)
HOMETOWN: The Midwest? My family lives in Kansas, but I mostly grew up in Chicago.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Co-chair of Building Bridges, sing in G-Choir, also a Spanish Composition tutor.
FAVORITE AUTHOR: I´ve really been getting into Latin American literature lately, so my recent "faves" are Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges (although I´m not sure I´m fluent enough to fully appreciate either of them yet).
FAVORITE BOOK: Recently I read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, and I recommend it to anyone who´s ever wondered about humankind´s place in the grand scheme of things. It made me think about everything twice.
FAVORITE CLASS: My favorite class that I´m taking this semester is God & Globalization with Thia Cooper.
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: Good background music. I generally prefer bluegrass (ie Nickel Creek).
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON:The kind where I know what I want to write about.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: Read the prompt and let it percolate in my brain for a few days till I think of something I want to write about. Then I jot down some notes to flesh it out a bit, and then I´m ready to write.

Ryan McGinty

GRADUATION DATE: May 2010 Ryan
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S):  English major with a writing emphasis, Philosophy minor
HOMETOWN:  Shoreview, MN
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:  Firethorne, Sigma Tau Delta, Gustavian Weekly, Lineus (I'm not funny, I just run sound)
FAVORITE AUTHOR:  Wallace Stevens, Cormac McCarthy, Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Gaiman
FAVORITE BOOK:  Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
FAVORITE CLASS:  Currently, Existentialism
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: My trusty Cross Pen, "Calliope"- she and I have been through a lot together
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: 10.5 x 8 inch, white, college ruled, and preferably recycled (I'm told it's good to go green)
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: Reading is always the first step

 

John Kennedy John

GRADUATION DATE: May 2010
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S): Biochemistry / Molecular Biology and Biology
HOMETOWN: Coon Rapids, MN
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track
FAVORITE AUTHOR: To hard to choose one.
FAVORITE BOOK:  Hard to pick only one. I read a lot of non-fiction (ethics, environmental science, stuff on political and social issues, history...). If I had to pick one fiction book, it would be 1984 by George Orwell.
FAVORITE CLASS:  Anything in Molecular Biology, but I also enjoy philosophy, psychology,
and sociology classes.
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: The thesaurus!
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Science research papers, but I find it refreshing to write in the other disciplines. In particular, I enjoy writing position papers.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: I make a list of ideas associated with my thesis/objectives, and connect them together in a map. This way I have a plan for the entire paper and I can see how different ideas are related to each other.

 

Lynn Olson

GRADUATION DATE:  May 2010 Lynn
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S):  English Major, Philosophy Minor
HOMETOWN:  Moorhead, MN
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:  tutoring at the Writing Center, copy editing for the
Gustavian Weekly, faculty research assistance, harp
FAVORITE AUTHOR:  John Steinbeck is my man!
FAVORITE BOOK:  On the Road by Jack Kerouac
FAVORITE CLASS:  A tie between Creative Nonfiction and Existentialism
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: An old-school pink eraser
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Papyrus; you can write on it in pen, then dip it in
water and - voila! - the ink is gone. It's like magic.
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: I scribble nonsense on my Magnadoodle (the best toy ever) until inspiration strikes. If you ever want to borrow it and try it for yourself, just ask!

 

Brett Nelson

GRADUATION DATE:  May 2011
MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S):  Financial Economics and Political Science major
HOMETOWN:  Edina, MN
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:  Epsilon Pi Alpha fraternity, Inter Greek Senate, working at the tennis bubble
FAVORITE AUTHOR:  Ayn Rand, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Sowell
FAVORITE BOOK:  I generally enjoy nonfiction works about topics that are politically relevant.
FAVORITE CLASS:  Government & Business, various Political Science courses
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: It’s probably not my favorite, but my most effective writing tool is a healthy dose of stress
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Something that forces you to take a stand on an issue and defend your argument, especially if the argument is counterintuitive
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: I force myself to write down whatever comes into my head and realize that I can always go back and edit later.

 

Ethan Marxhausen


MAJOR(S)/ MINOR(S):  English and Political Science majors
HOMETOWN:  Woodbury, MN
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:  PLEDGE coucil, College Libertarians, GAC TV, watching classic films and screenwriting.
FAVORITE AUTHOR:  William Goldman
FAVORITE BOOK:  And Then There Were None Agatha Christie
FAVORITE WRITING TOOL: A really expensive ballpoint pen
FAVORITE KIND OF PAPER TO WORK ON: Yellow legal paper
HOW YOU GET STARTED ON A PAPER: I get started on a paper by putting together a basic outline in Word.