Our faculty mentors write, teach and publish across genres, engage in interdisciplinary projects, take care of the communities they are a part of, and, most of all, approach the twenty-first century writing life with invention, pragmatism and creativity. With like-minded faculty to aid them, students at OSU-Cascades are encouraged to cultivate the spontaneity, innovation, courage and commitment the writing life demands.
Faculty
Beth Alvarado
Fiction and Nonfiction
Beth Alvarado is the author of the essay collection "Anxious Attachments," which won the 2020 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and was long listed for the PEN Art of the Essay Award. Her recent story collection, "Jillian in the Borderlands," marries the social justice novel with magical realism, and her memoir, "Anthropologies," is a lyric rendering of her family's history. Her first story collection, "Not a Matter of Love," won the Many Voices Prize from New Rivers Press in 2005. In 2020, she was awarded an Oregon Literary Career Fellowship.
Alvarado believes that everything we write is an evolving experiment and that an education gives us the critical tools and community we need to keep the practice going. She believes that reading and writing are transformative. In addition to teaching, she is an editorial advisor for JackLeg Press and was on the editorial board of Puro Chicanx Writing of the 21st Century. She earned her M.A. in Literature from Stanford University and her MFA in Fiction from the University of Arizona, where she taught for years. You can find her work at bethalvarado.com.
Christopher Boucher
Fiction and Digital Humanities
Christopher Boucher is the author of the novels "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" (Melville House, 2011), "Golden Delicious" (Melville House, 2016), and "Big Giant Floating Head" (Melville House, 2019). He’s also the editor of Jonathan Lethem's "More Alive and Less Lonely: On Books and Writers" (Melville House, 2016). Chris received his MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University in 2002, and he currently teaches in the English Department at Boston College; he’s also the managing editor of Post Road Magazine. Chris’s academic interests include postmodern and contemporary fiction, hybrid texts and digital humanities. Chris lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. In his free time, he plays the five-string banjo.
As a writing teacher, Chris emphasizes the intrinsic value of a regular writing practice; he sees it as a mode of inquiry — a way of listening in the world. He looks forward to working with writers at OSU to cultivate an artistic practice that is rigorous, sustainable, ever-evolving and always surprising. Find him @heychrisboucher on Twitter and Instagram.
Irene Cooper
Poetry
Irene Cooper is the author of the feminist noir novel "FOUND," winner of the North Street Prize; "COMMITTAL," poet-friendly spy-fy; "spare change," finalist for the Stafford/Hall Award for poetry, 2022 Oregon Book Awards; and the forthcoming poetry collection, "even my dreams are over the constant state of anxiety." Stories, essays, and critical reviews appear variously. Irene supports AIC-directed creative writing at a regional prison, teaches in community and at OSU-Cascades, and currently serves as an editor for Airlie Press. She lives with her people and mourns Maggie in Oregon.
Mike Cooper
Fiction and Nonfiction
Mike Cooper holds an MFA from Oregon State University – Cascades in Bend, Oregon where he lives with his family. His short story “Call Me When You Get There” was published in The Baltimore Review winter ’24 issue and he has been a finalist in Glimmer Train, The Lascaux Review, Driftwood Press and Cutthroat. He is president of the Central Oregon Writers Guild and teaches writing at Central Oregon Community College and OSU-Cascades (undergraduate and in the MFA Program), as well as creative writing workshops through Blank Pages Workshops and The Forge, and at the Deschutes Public Library, COCC Community Learning and Deer Ridge Correctional Institute.
Jeff Fearnside
Fiction
Jeff Fearnside is the author of two full-length books and two chapbooks, most recently "Ships in the Desert" (SFWP, 2022), winner of several post-publication awards, including a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award. Other awards for his writing include a Grand Prize in the Santa Fe Writers Project’s Literary Awards Program, the Mary Mackey Short Story Prize from the National League of American Pen Women, and an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship.
His short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including The Paris Review, Los Angeles Review, Story, The Sun, and Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest (University of Washington Press, 2016). Fearnside was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan for two years and lived and worked in Central Asia for four years in all. He has taught writing and literature in Kazakhstan and at various institutions in the U.S.: Washington State University, Western Kentucky University, Prescott College, Oregon State University and OSU-Cascades. More info at jeff-fearnside.com
Kim Johnson
Fiction
Kim Johnson's bestselling novel, "This Is My America," won numerous 2021 accolades, including the Pacific Northwest Book Award and Malka Penn Human Rights Award for Children’s Literature. Her second novel, "Invisible Son," was a 2023 LA Times Book Award and Amelia Elizabeth Warden Finalist. Both novels were selected as NPR Best Books and Kirkus Best Books. "The Color of a Lie" is her first historical thriller.
She received her MFA from Oregon State University – Cascades and holds a B.S. in Ethnic Studies from the University of Oregon and M.Ed. from the University of Maryland, College Park. She now lives in the Washington D.C area.
Kristen Millares Young
Fiction and Nonfiction
Kristen Millares Young is a journalist, essayist and author of the novel "Subduction," named a staff pick by The Paris Review and called “whip-smart” by the Washington Post, “a brilliant debut” by the Seattle Times and “utterly unique and important” by Ms. Magazine. Winner of Nautilus and IPPY awards, "Subduction" was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and named a finalist for two International Latino Book Awards and Foreword Indies Book of the Year. "Subduction" was selected as one of “the year’s best books” by Electric Literature and featured by journals such as BOMB, the Believer, the Los Angeles Review of Books and Ploughshares.
A 2025 resident of the Storyknife Writers Retreat, Kristen was the researcher for the New York Times team that produced Snow Fall, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Her essays, book reviews and investigations appear in the Washington Post, the Guardian, Literary Hub and the anthologies "Advanced Creative Nonfiction," "Latina Outsiders" and "Alone Together," winner of a Washington State Book Award. A former Prose Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House, she is the editor of "Seismic: Seattle, City of Literature," a Washington State Book Award finalist. Her memoir "Desire Lines" will be published by Red Hen Press in October 2026. As a workshop leader, she believes kindness is the greatest form of rigor. Find her work at www.kristenmyoung.com. @kristenmillares
Distinguished Visiting Writers (Past)
Kaui Hart Hemmings, Jason Buchholz, Beth Piatote, Mia Susan Amir, Geraldine Brooks, CA Conrad, Karen Finneyfrock, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Raquel Gutiérrez, Kristiana Kahakauwila, Colleen Kinder, Deborah A. Miranda, Elizabeth A.I. Powell, James Prosek, Justin Taylor, Jennifer Tseng
Staff
Jenna Goldsmith
MFA Program Manager
Jenna Goldsmith is a poet, writer and teacher based in Illinois. She is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including "CRUSH," winner of the 2022 Baltic Writing Residency Chapbook Contest, and "TITLE NINE," which was published by Press 254, the teaching press of Illinois State University. Her writing has been featured in numerous journals including New Delta Review, South Carolina Review, and Cleveland Review of Books, and her full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press/University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. She is an associate editor for Spoon River Poetry Review and the City Poet Laureate of Rockford, Illinois, where she resides.
Raye Lynn McCabe
Graduate Student Recruitment Coordinator
Born and raised in Northern Arizona, Raye Lynn earned her civil engineering bachelor of science degree from Arizona State University. Before she could get a job in engineering, she started substituting in her home school district, Tuba City Unified School District. She loved being in the classroom and interacting with young people. Raye Lynn became a secondary certified math teacher and was in the school for 19 years. She obtained a master of science in education degree in educational leadership from the University of Kansas and eventually became the principal of Tuba City High School. Raye Lynn served as the principal for six years.
She enjoys reading, running, traveling, watching college basketball or football, and spending time with family.