Doctorate of Philosophy in Publishing Studies, Oxford Brookes University
Doctorate of Philosophy in Creative Writing, University of Edinburgh
Master of Arts in Publishing, Oxford Brookes University
Master of Arts in Creative Writing, Loughborough University
Bachelor of Arts in English, Cum Laude Auburn University, Alabama
Currently a senior lecturer across media, journalism and publishing at Oxford Brookes University. I research social media, marketing, power dynamics, gender, performance, authenticity, AI, new technology and ethics in online spaces. I teach marketing, research, and on the wider creative industries. I also do consulting work, and have founded an AI-based audiobook company: Dudley Editions.
Originally from Alabama, I moved to the United Kingdom in 2006 and have been in higher education almost continually since. I received my undergraduate in English from Auburn University in Alabama, then moved to Loughborough to study for my MA in creative writing. From there, I did an MA in Publishing at Oxford Brookes.
I worked for Edinburgh Books in my spare time. I helped out at Scottish Book Trust for their yearly, national celebration of reading: Book Week Scotland. Since that first part time role, I filled several positions in the organisation, from book distribution to handling their excellent Live Literature Funding programme, and online content co-coordinating for the Writer Development team.
In 2013 I took on a part time role for Scottish PEN and helped to organise a series of events linked to the Commonwealth Games 2014. In this project, we brought in commonwealth authors from around the world and paired them in unique locations with Scottish authors who had similar themes, ideas, works, etc. and held free events.
In 2012, Hande Zapsu Watt and I set up The Istanbul Review, a literary journal that is based both in Istanbul and Edinburgh. It is a collection of poetry, short stories, extracts, interviews, artworks and more that celebrates reading and writing on the international stage.
What I’m hoping to do with this website is for it to be a digital footprint of my research, and hopefully it will help others to get a better understanding of the slippery place where social media, publishing, immersive technology (and gender and power dynamics) converge. And there may be an occasional sojourn into other topics as the mood strikes.
Before moving to the UK and focusing on writing, academia, and publishing, I spent most of my life showing American Quarter Horses throughout the States.
I am no longer on Twitter (X), but you can see how my dog has hacked my Instagram.
I also fully believe in using the Oxford Comma and am skeptical of those who don’t.
Read more about what I do here.