Biography

BRYAN FRY currently teaches for the English department and the Honors College at Washington State University. His major studies include creative nonfiction, literary editing and publishing, and student advising.

Bryan’s scholarly passion is driven by writing and publishing and in 2008 these interests converged in his appointed position as Co-Editor of the literary journal Blood Orange Review. One of his primary duties includes promoting BOR through the use of online services such as Twitter and Facebook. He also cultivates email lists, creates contacts with publishing listservs, exchanges links with other credible online journals, updates marketing materials, solicits writers, and publicizes the accomplishments of contributors. In the years since his appointment, BOR has been featured in Poets and Writers and NewPages as well as exhibited at The Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference.

Bryan’s work as an editor also contributes to his versatile role as advisor at WSU. Over the last three years he has directed an internship composed of six distinguished English majors who read submissions and write blogs for Blood Orange Review. He works closely with these interns and extends opportunities that help bolster their academic careers. Last year he coordinated the fundraising and travel plans that enabled all six students to join him at the AWP conference in Washington D.C. where he exposed them to the broader publishing scene and influenced their interests in M.F.A programs. In addition to advising interns, Bryan also directs creative and academic theses for the Honors College.

The English department has recognized Bryan’s teaching excellence by varying his course load and accepting his proposal for a course in Literary Editing and Publishing. In this course, he employs most of the strategies he uses in teaching upper-division classes where students engage in collaborative work, utilize digital media, replicate writing and editing scenarios, and strengthen their creative and professional backgrounds. At the beginning of the semester, students break into groups, designate editorial positions, and produce all the marketing materials and technical documents necessary to operate a functioning literary journal. As the semester progresses, students visit other classes and solicit work from students on campus. The final project asks each group to “publish” the first issue of their journal, which they unveil to the public the following semester. This is a dynamic course and because of its success, the English department has chosen to schedule it annually each fall.

Though his more recent position at Washington State University has given Bryan the opportunity to hone his teaching and advising skills as well as develop his own course, his early classroom experiences include working with inmates in medium and maximum security facilities at Washington State Penitentiary. These experiences were monumental in shaping Bryan’s ability to work with nontraditional students. In the penitentiary, he allowed students with diverse, underprivileged backgrounds to explore the rhetoric of their own language. This strengthened his role as a mentor for WSU’s Critical Literacies Achievement and Success Program where—from 2008-2009—he met with disadvantaged and first generation students to help them discover their academic voices and strengthen their confidence when dialoguing with professors.

Born January 3, 1977, in Miles City, Montana, Bryan Fry received his B.A. in literature from Walla Walla College and his MFA in creative writing from the University of Idaho. In addition to teaching and editing, he is a poet and an essayist as well as a husband and a father of three children. He lives in Pullman, Washington.