We are thrilled to welcome Sarah Cooper, Sarah Perry, and Todd Ruecker to the Department of English! Below, get to know our new faculty and learn why they chose to join our community and further their careers at Colorado State University.
Sarah Cooper, Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Sarah Cooper is a Canadian American academic, scholar, and poet. Her scholarship is situated at the intersection of queering rhetorics, lesbian studies and feminist and material rhetorics. She is the author of two poetry collections: Permanent Marker (Paper Nautilus, 2020) and 89% (Clemson University Press 2022), and has had her poems appear in Lunch, Sinister Wisdom, Iron Horse and in Poem-A-Day. Most recently, her scholarship can be found in The Journal of Lesbian Studies.
The 2024 Friedman Feminist Press Grant Recipient at Colorado State University, Cooper holds a Ph.D. in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design from Clemson University, an MFA in poetry from Converse University and an MA in English, with concentrations in Literary Studies and Rhetoric and Composition from Purdue University. Collectively, her graduate work addresses how language mediates identity.
What drew you to CSU?
“I was impressed with CSU’s resources for faculty and students along with the WAC Clearinghouse, and the special collections (just to name a few). Additionally, Fort Collins affords me the space off campus to row, hike, and ski.”
What are you looking forward to this semester?
“I’m eager to learn what my colleagues are working on in their research, attending the Writing, Rhetoric, and Social Change grad colloquiums, and getting to know my students.”
What are you working on (research/scholarship/creative work) that you’re excited about?
“I’m composing an article with two other scholars that uses the Dr. ‘Skip’ Elsas papers from the special collections at the Atlanta History Center. We are writing on the gender verification program from the 1996 Olympics.”
Sarah Perry, Assistant Professor of English specializing in Creative Writing
Sarah Perry (she/they) is a memoirist and essayist who writes about love, food culture, body image, trauma, gender-based violence, queerness, and the power dynamics that influence those concerns. She is the author of the memoir After the Eclipse: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Search, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her essay collection, Sweet Nothings: Confessions of a Candy Lover, is forthcoming from Mariner/HarperCollins in February 2025.
Perry previously taught in the graduate program in Creative Writing at the University of North Texas and was the 2019 McGee Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Davidson College. Her writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, Off Assignment, Elle magazine, The Guardian, Cake Zine, and other outlets. Originally from Maine, Perry spent ten years in the Southeast and ten years in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University and is at work on two book manuscripts: a sequel memoir titled The Book of Regrets, and a work of personal true crime criticism called Two Daughters Were Away.
What drew you to CSU?
The creative writing faculty at CSU is phenomenal, full of brilliant writers working at the top of their game while supporting each other and their students. I wanted to join this community where kindness was valued as much as excellence.
What are you looking forward to this semester?
I’m looking forward to creative writing potlucks, watching my students develop, and getting out into the mountains to snowshoe.
What are you working on (research/scholarship/creative work) that you’re excited about?
I’m working on a project about the surviving members of the Clutter family of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood—two daughters who were not home at the time of the event. This project considers their experience over the many decades of Capote’s fame and iterations of their family’s story, using my own experience as a survivor of violence to examine the conventions and predations of the true crime genre. I’m also writing an essay for Bon Appétit about the pleasures of the maraschino cherry!
Todd Ruecker, Associate Professor of Writing Program Administration and Director of Composition
Todd Ruecker is an experienced writing program administer who will be directing the University Composition Program at CSU. He has taught a variety of courses including first-year composition, professional/technical writing, cross-cultural communication, and the politics of writing instruction. In addition to working with linguistically and culturally diverse students at the postsecondary level in the U.S. and Colombia, he has taught EFL in workplaces and K-12 schools in the Czech Republic and Chile.
Ruecker’s interdisciplinary research is primarily focused on exploring issues surrounding the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity of education worldwide and working to transform educational institutions and writing classrooms into more inclusive spaces for all students. He has published books on a variety of topics, including student transitions from high school to college, the role writing classes play in college student retention and success, and assessment. He has published articles in journals such as College Composition and Communication, Composition Studies, TESOL Quarterly, and Writing Program Administration.
What drew you to CSU?
I enjoy working at public research universities like CSU as they are committed to providing access to higher education for students from a wide variety of backgrounds. CSU is well-respected in my field due to the WAC Clearinghouse and the well-developed University Composition Program. Place is also important and Fort Collins seemed like a great place to live and work!
What are you looking forward to this semester?
I am looking forward to further getting to know colleagues in the English Department and across the University—everyone has been very welcoming so far! I am also looking forward to working with the various University Composition Program administrators in discussing ways how we can continue to develop our program to support student success in college and beyond.
What are you working on (research/scholarship/creative work) that you’re excited about?
Since my work is grounded in the program I’m working in, moving to a new place always allows new opportunities to develop new research directions. While I’m still learning about the dynamics of our program here, we are already exploring possibilities of research around the training of graduate student instructors and building student metacognition in writing classes.