Staff

Meet Our Leadership Team

Shareen Grogan, MA.

Shareen Grogan, MA. 

Director

Shareen (she/her) studied English and French as an undergraduate, and began her teaching career as an English-language assistant at a high school in Southwest France. She returned to the University of Montana to study English as a graduate student, then moved to San Diego where she completed a Master’s degree in Linguistics, with emphasis in second language acquisition and phonological processes like nasalization. Shareen began directing writing centers in 2001, and she’s been at UM since 2018. Her tutoring interests include the self-talk that gets in the way of our writing.

Shareen’s writing advice: Messy, messy, messy! (Learn to embrace it!)

Catherine Filardi, PhD.

Catherine Filardi, PhD.

Associate Director

Catherine (she/her) studied Biology and English at Amherst College prior to pursuing a PhD in Zoology from the University of Washington where she studied the evolution of bird diversity across the Solomon Archipelago. She has worked as a Program Director at UM’s Wilderness Institute, as a free-lance editor and grant-writer for Missoula-area nonprofits, and as a consultant at the Writing and Public Speaking Center for five years prior to becoming Associate Director in 2021.

Catherine’s writing advice: Putting words on a page helps you think more clearly. Just do it.

Amy Ratto Parks, MFA, EdD. 

Associate Director

Amy (she/her) studied English and Philosophy at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing, MA in Literature, and EdD in Education at UM. Her poetry, fiction, and essays appear in literary, popular, and academic journals. She has worked as a reporter, a freelance writer, online writing course designer, and magazine editor – and for the past 20 years has been teaching student writers at UM. She is fascinated by the behavior of translating thoughts into written words. Her ongoing research in metacognition pursues answers about why we get stuck and how we can leverage the power of writing to help us overcome a variety of academic and non-academic challenges.

Amy’s writing advice: Chaos comes before clarity -- you just have to keep going.

Meet our Office Assistant

Mathalia Stroethoff

Mathalia Stroethoff 

Mathalia (she/her) has been a part of the Writing Center longer than any other staff member. Since 2012, Mathalia has assisted with data entry, office tasks, and recycling. Her attention to detail and shy but warm demeanor make her a valued member of our team. Mathalia is a prolific weaver and entrepreneur, selling her hand-woven pot-holders around Missoula and donating them to the Missoula Food Bank and other nonprofits. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, word searches, hiking and cross-country skiing.

Meet Our Consultants

Our professional Writing Center consultants bring a variety of academic and professional backgrounds and skills to the Writing and Public Speaking Center. Some are current graduate students, many are published writers, all bring a wealth of relevant writing and teaching experiences and a passion for providing individualized support to writers across the UM campus.

Robin Bissett, MFA candidate

Robin Bissett, MFA candidate.

Robin (she/her) is a writer, editor, and teaching artist from West Texas. She received her undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from Trinity University and attended the University of Iowa's International Writing Program Summer Institute. She is a first-year fiction MFA candidate at the University of Montana and serves as the Online Managing Editor of CutBank.

Robin's writing advice: Read your writing aloud!

erik_5036.png

Erik Borke, MA, MS.

Erik (he/him) has an academic background in math (MA) and computer science (MS). He is broadly interested in pure mathematics and his computational interests include algorithm development, code optimization, and parallel computing.

Erik’s writing advice: There is no substitute for sufficient subject matter knowledge.

Kelly Franklin, MS, PhD

Kelly Franklin, MS, PhD.

Kelly (she/her) received her Bachelor of Science degree in Resource Conservation from the UM, her M.S. in Aquaculture and Aquatic Resource Management from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, and her PhD in Systems Ecology, from the UM. Kelly joined the Writing Center as a consultant after attending the graduate student workshop series during early stages of her Ph.D. and since then has led many graduate student writing workshops both in-person and online. Her work as an international consultant for the UN and academic institutions in Central and Southeast Asia involved integrating writing skills and strategies into undergraduate and graduate programs.

Kelly’s writing advice: Having a regular writing schedule and setting goals helps keep you motivated and productive. Early in a writing project, concept (or mind) mapping is a great way to brainstorm and identify connections between ideas.

Suzanne Garcia Pino, MFA.

Suzanne Garcia Pino, MFA. 

Suzanne (she/her) hails from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico. After working in elementary education and design and marketing, Suzanne returned to the University of Montana to pursue her life-long interest in writing through an MFA in nonfiction creative writing.

Suzanne’s writing advice: Sometimes it can seem like a good idea to adapt someone else's writing solutions or aesthetic, but that's the easy way out and your writing will always lose its charge. Time and time again, I have learned that the only way to get the writing unstuck is to double down on your own singular solutions and aesthetic, even if it scares you to do so.

Steve Kalling, MFA.

Steve Kalling, MFA.

Steve (he/him) has worked with writers and aspiring teachers of writing for over twenty years. He has a bachelor’s degree in general studies with an English Teaching credential from the University of Michigan, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. Since 2013 he has taught writing to graduate students in the Creative Pulse program, and since 2017 has worked as a consultant at the UM Writing Center. Steve has written scripts and composed music for several science communication touring programs, spends summers in a remote fire lookout in the Bitterroot Mountains, and is a jazz bassist and composer.

Steve’s writing advice: Write quickly and badly. Write something every day.

Charley Macorn, MFA.

Charley Macorn, MFA. 

Charley (she/they) received a Bachelor’s Degree in History and an MFA in Media Arts from the University of Montana. Charley’s passion for teaching has led them to instruct university classes on media literacy and screenwriting, as well as computer literacy classes to seniors, and storytelling and filmmaking workshops to students of all ages. Charley is also an award-winning stand-up comedian!

Charley’s writing advice: Reading your writing out loud may disturb the other passengers on the bus, but it can help you catch typos and repeated words.

Annie Kolle, MFA

Barry Maxwell, MFA.

Barry (he/him) is a transplanted Missoulian, originally from Austin, Texas. Barry received his MFA from UM in 2020, where he served as online managing editor for Cutbank Literary Magazine, taught creative and academic writing, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in social work. Barry’s writing has been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, and he is the founder of the Street Lit Authors Club, which provides books and writing workshops to Missoula’s underserved communities. Above all, he is a fist-waving supporter of the arts in unexpected places, from unexpected sources

Barry’s writing advice: Try not to compare your writing or your Self to others. Remember no one else is as good at being you as you are. There's treasure in your own voice. Honor it as best you can, respect it, and give equal honor to the voices and stories of those you encounter. 

Kalani Padilla, MA, MFA candidate.

Kalani Padilla, MA, MFA candidate.

Kalani (they/she) is a Filipino-American and Kama'aina writer from Mililani, Hawai'i. Kalani holds degrees in English, Film & Visual Narratives (B.A., '19) and Theology (M.A., '21) from Whitworth University in Spokane, WA, and currently is pursuing their MFA in Poetry at UM. Kalani served as a multimodal consultant at Whitworth, and as an inclusivity writer for the Wilderness Institute in UM's College of Forestry.

Kalani's writing advice: Writing is as much a somatic/embodied activity as it is a cerebral/intellectual one; sometimes the project needs be taken out — out on a walk, on a swim, to lunch with a friend, to a bigger piece of paper, to a yoga mat — in order to grow!

gaaby.headshot.png

Gaaby Rappoport, MFA (media arts/filmmaking).

In former lives, Gaaby (she/her) has been a playwright, has published fiction, nonfiction and poetry, and was one of 2017's Academy of Motion Picture's Nicholl Fellowship quarterfinalists for her feature screenplay Sure of You. She’s currently a freelance writer, editor and also a screenwriter in preproduction on her first feature film 40teen. She received her bachelor’s in English/creative writing and her MFA in media arts/filmmaking from University of Montana where she taught screenwriting and film. 

Gaaby’s writing advice: No matter what you're writing, the objective is to get yourself on the page. Your personal experience, passion and authentic voice are your most powerful tools!

iclaire.mg_5703_square.png

Claire Tuna, MFA candidate (poetry).

Claire (she/her) is a writer, editor, and graduate student at the University of Montana. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she researched Human-Computer Interaction in the Berkeley Institute of Design. Her zine, Fugitive Gardens  (Microcosm 2020), inspects the possibilities for growing food in unlikely places. Claire is the honored recipient of the 2023 Western Montana State Fair blue ribbon for “Vegetable Grown in an < 5 Gallon Container.” 

Claire’s writing advice: I like what Don Draper said. “Just think about it deeply. Then forget it. And an idea will jump in your face."