Alisha Sullivan
Alisha spent much of her childhood roaming through the Alabama countryside looking for the perfect swimming hole. She found a couple of pretty good ones and also learned to appreciate the richness of southern biodiversity before moving to Arizona to spend a year working at Grand Canyon National Park.
While working at Bright Angel Gift Shop – a shop right on the South Rim at the start of the Bright Angel Trail – she watched as thousands of tourists came to the canyon’s edge trying to make some kind of connection or create some kind of meaning for where they were. Many bought postcards and hurried to get back on the tour bus; some came in at sunrise and bought water and snacks for a hike into the canyon; a few bought books by Edward Abbey and John Wesley Powell. Alisha became fascinated by how people connect, or fail to connect with the landscapes and life around them. What is the process by which we add depth to a place so that it is not merely a postcard? How can literature shed light on this process or be part of it?
Alisha returned to Alabama and earned a BA in English from Auburn University, Montgomery. During that time she found out about ecocriticism and the Literature and Environment program here at UNR. She left Alabama and moved west once again, this time with her two children, and is now a first year MA student in the L&E program. A few of her current interests are Southern literature, bioregionalism, and connections between various religions and environmental attitudes in literature.