Baker, Laura Jean

Faculty Advisor, Wisconsin Review

Office: Radford 228

Phone: 920-424-0917

Email: bakerl@uwosh.edu

Office Hours:  Fridays 1-4pm and by appointment

Personal Statement

Laura Jean's writing and research are preoccupied by her interest in the complex dynamics of contemporary family life, mental health, criminal versus moral law, and the contemporary (liberated) woman's quest for identity. She writes about and teaches these themes and debates, embodied in a range of literary genres, though primarily in short memoir and fiction.

Recommended Reading: 

• The Beggar Maid, Alice Munro 
• The Coast of Chicago, Stuart Dybek
• Burning Down the House, Charles Baxter
• I Could Tell You Stories, Patricia Hampl

Degrees

• MFA, University of Michigan (2003)
• JBA & BA, University of Wisconsin (2000)

Courses Taught: 

• ENG405 Memoir & Picture Books 
• ENG335 Personal Narratives 
• ENG303 Fiction I
• ENG304 Fiction II
• ENG226 (Modern American Literature) English 204 (Intro to Creative Writing) WBIS 188 (Conversations About Family)

Selected Publications and/or Activities:

• "Half Brothers and Other Fractional Siblings," The Connecticut Review
• "The '08 Girls," The Cream City Review
• "Nude Portrait," The Gettysburg Review
• "How To Love," The Southeast Review
• "Onaway Island," Third Coast
• "Year of the Tiger," War, Literature, and the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities