Shonell in TCR Land

I remember my first foray into the Internet back in 1994, 1995. At the time, all I was interested in was communicating with other people from all over the world in chat rooms. By the end of the 20th century, I moved into HTML and designing websites (bad looking sites at the time!). In 1999, I co-founded an African American literary e-zine, The Nubian Chronicles, where I showcased writing from amateur and professional AA writers and interviewed well-known authors. In the 2000′s, I worked with a dear friend on another e-zine, SisterDivas, that featured positive articles, interviews, and features for women, about women. I also started and have maintained a popular blog, ChickLitGurrl: high on LATTES & WRITING, where I interview women writers. In the last six years or so, I’ve become very interested in podcasts and I have developed several, mostly pertaining to the writing craft for fiction writers. I’ve been interested in how the publishing industry uses the Internet to promote its literary wares and how authors themselves use the Internet to promote works. Book trailers, likened to movie trailers, have been a lucrative way in which authors and publishers are promoting books.

In addition to the above, I am a social media geek; I’m willing to use any social media product once. Right now, I’m a part of the Twitterati, and I am into social networking sites, like Facebook; I use both of these daily. This year, I have immersed myself into Second Life pretty heavily, and there is a huge need for strong Internet writing skills within this and other virtual worlds.

What I know is I have played and worked within the Internet for a while, but what I lack is the “official” ability to discuss the theories behind all the things I do, and pursuing my Ph.D. in Tech. Comm. & Rhetoric is definitely helping me to develop these thoughts and skills.

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Research Interests

Technology, culture, gender, race, new media/writing, digital literacy, social networking, writing instruction, narratology, history & theory of rhetoric, digital rhetoric

Specific Interest

The intersection of gender and race and their roles in identity (re)construction in online spaces.

Previous Work

Before coming to TTU, I worked for eight years within two areas: education (teacher) and literature (editor and author).

I’ve worked as a teacher (instructor, English specialist, lecturer, graduate teacher) of freshman composition, developmental writing, and mass communication courses, such as Introduction of Mass Communication, Writing for the Media, and Writing for Radio and Television. Right now, my teaching is solely seen through my work as an editor.

I’ve worked (and currently work) as an editor. I edit mostly creative works – novels, short stories, creative non-fiction, poetry, and screenplays.

I’ve worked (and currently work) as an author. In the past, I’ve written (and have had published) commercial fiction. I have also contributed to the creation of three academic textbooks on freshman composition. My debut solo novel, Death at the Double Inkwell, was released June 2010.

For fun…and to brand myself as someone who knows about writing, I run several blogs that feature writers, and my articles on the craft of writing run on several sites.