About Me

I am currently the Chair of the First Year Composition Technology Committee and primarily teach English 101 and English 102 in the First Year Composition Program for the English Department at Western Carolina University located in Cullowhee, North Carolina. I’m lucky enough to live near the Blue Ridge Parkway in Haywood County, NC with my wife, Christy, and our children, Emerson and McKenzie.

Educational Background

Over the past few years or so, I’ve earned an Associate in Arts from Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, a B.A. in Literature from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, an M.A. in English from Western Carolina University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I list these achievements not as bragging rights, but because I am genuinely proud of North Carolina’s higher education institutions, and am truly grateful, as a first generation college graduate, for the opportunities they continue to give me.

Professional Background

I’ve always loved to read world mythologies and religious texts of all kinds and continue to do so. I’m also a bit of a news junky. My article, “Fuzûlî: A Research Guide” appears in the peer-reviewed journal, Current Studies in Librarianship.

I helped start the online version of the Baker-Barber Collection as both the primary author of Henderson County Public Library’s Baker-Barber Collection manual, 2002-2007 as well as the metadata and description author. The collection was featured in Mountain Traditions, Spring 2006.

I was the technical consultant for Henderson County Public Library’s publication of the Stillwell Collection by Bill Mitchell.

I worked as a writer for Western Carolina University Web Site Redesign project during the summer of 2007.

My poetry appears in Coloring Book: An Eclectic Anthology of Fiction and Poetry by Multicultural Writers, 2004 and The MAG Muse-Apprentice Guild, 2004.

Through college I worked for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., first as a peak-time sales clerk in Hardware and Paint and worked my way up to Assistant Manager. I’m proud of my time at Wal-Mart and am thankful that managers felt strongly about the importance of an education and worked my schedule around my classes. I’m also thankful for the “lectures” they gave me that kept me in school when I thought about taking time off.

A little history…

I was born in Adana, located on the Çukurova plain south-east of the Taurus Mountains of the Republic of Turkey. It lies just east of Tarsus. Adana is perhaps best known for its food and agricultural products. It is also home to Incirlik Air Force Base.

My family settled in Asheville, North Carolina where I attended Oakley Elementary through the fifth grade, and then Fairview Elementary, after moving to Fairview, NC. I attended AC Reynolds High School, through the tenth grade, and graduated from Adana Anadolu Lisesi (ALA), in 1987, after moving back to Adana in 1984.

For the greater part, I’ve lived in western North Carolina my whole life, mostly in Buncombe, Henderson, and Haywood Counties. I’ve been lucky enough to have traveled to a lot of places but can’t think of anywhere else in the world I’d rather be than the Appalachian Mountains.