The most important thing you should know about me is that I am terrible at the “About” page genre.

Since there are probably only two reasons you are here: you want to know the “professional” me, or you are here to read the blog, I will break this about stuff up into a few sections describing the different aspects that make me, well, me.

Professional Brandy

In 2010 I began working as the Coordinator of Writing and Speaking Tutorial Services at North Carolina State University (say that 5 times fast). It is a very fancy title for a writing center administrator. Although I thoroughly enjoyed teaching composition, at NC State I think I found Writing Studies home.  I love writing centers and the professional community surrounding them. From working with writers to interviewing new consultants to planning the schedule writing center work always challenges and invigorates me.  I finished my Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition in May 2013. My dissertation is about the intersections between Writing Studies (the composition classroom, writing program administration, and the writing center) and Hospitality Theory, specifically the work of Emmanuel Levinas.

 Rhetorical Brandy

As much as I love the work that I do in the writing center and teaching writing, there will always be a special part of me reserved for the second part of my degree, the Rhetoric part.  I love thinking about television, books, movies, and just about anything else from a rhetorical perspective. More often than not my own personal rhetorical lens involves a feminist and working class perspective. The blog provides me a space for this other writing that is both academic and personal.

All the other Brandys

Yes, there is more to me than all this degree stuff, but it is all pretty eclectic. I grew up in Washington State, but was not born there, and didn’t identify with being “from” there until I moved away when I was 24. Now I live in North Carolina, and I’m only half joking when I say I ended up here by throwing darts at a map.

Musically, my parents started me out alright – Creedence, America, Merle Haggard, and Dolly Parton in the 8track when I was little (The first song I remember singing along with was “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”) The first cassette they gave me was Sgt. Peppers. I’m pretty sure I was the only girl in my high school with a tape collection that included Martika, Tiffany, Skid Row, Third Base, Kwame, and Public Enemy. Yes, some of that was pretty bad, but some of it was pretty good too — and hey, I was in high school.  Since then, the music collection has only gotten more eclectic.

Books & Television – you will hear more about on the blog, but right now I there are several shows I like, but nothing I love.  There is a large Battlestar Galactica shaped hole in my tv watching heart, which I keep trying to fill but nothing sticks (and I’ve pretty much memorized my first season dvds), so I go back to watching Homicide: Life on the Streets. Frank Pembleton is the model for my life. Book-wise I will read anything by Val McDermid, Tana French, and Veronica Roth.

Really, everything else you will find out about at Sur Le Seuil.