About Us

Short Bios
	Alan Ohman is a senior creative writing major from Swanton, Ohio. He's the president of the ONU College Democrats, the copy editor for the Northern Review (ONU's student newspaper), and is historian for the ONU chapter of Mortar Board.

	Andrew Leavitt is a junior Creative Writing major. In his spare time he watches too much television, buys more DVDs than any one person should ever own, listens to a wide variety of music, and reads comics more often than books. These habits give him an unusual amount of pop culture knowledge which he uses to confuse people regularly. He enjoys talking to anyone who will listen, long walks in the fall, and sarcasm.

	Carol Wilson is a Junior Professional Writing and History double major. She is a native of Royal Oak, Michigan and enjoys horseback riding, writing, and watching good sci-fi and fantasy movies. After college, Carol hopes to work in a museum.

	Chris Matejka is a freshman Creative Writing major. He is a member of ONU’s Men’s Soccer Team and working on his first novel. He hopes to one day work for the Walt Disney World Resort and continue writing novels and/or short stories.

	Gayle Riedel is a freshman English Literature major from Crestline, Ohio. Her hobbies include reading, bowling, drawing, Facebook, and hanging out with my friends. She loves photography, and hopes you enjoy her photos.

	Justin Stewart was born July 29, 1989, and hails from East Liverpool, Ohio. He was a winner of the Rotary Youth Leadership Award, a second place winner for the Regional Campus version of Kent State’s Virginia Perryman Freshman Writing Award, and a graduate of Beaver Local High School. He has previously published an essay about the novel Grendel by John Gardner (via the above-mentioned Virginia Perryman Freshman Writing Award), a short story called What Happens to Bercilak, Stays with Bercilak in Kent State’s literary magazine Colloquy, and a poem called “Rusty River” in ONU’s literary magazine Polaris. He currently attends ONU as a Creative Writing and Philosophy double major, serves as the Vice President of Philosophy Club, and writes about video games for eMEdia, a subject of which he never tires. His favorite type of food is cheese, in case you want to bribe him for some reason.

	Kerry DiBartolo is a junior Creative Writing major. She grew up in New York City and moved with her family to Lima when she was seventeen. She is completely addicted to movies, television and anything that has to do with media workings: behind the scene work, writing scripts, green screen work, CGI (computer generated imagery) and whatever else is needed. At this given moment she is working on writing her very first novel and hoping that there will be many more to come.

	From Sanger, California, Khaty Xiong is a junior Creative Writing major at Ohio Northern University. She comes from a rather large family of fifteen brothers and sisters, her being the twelfth born. In her four years of high school at Theodore Roosevelt High (Fresno, California), from 2003-2007, she has been published in the Fresno State’s Annual Young Writers’ Conference spectrums and awarded with the Fresno Area Council of Teachers award for her poetry. In her first two years of college at Ohio Northern, she has also been published in the undergraduate journal of arts and literature known as Polaris. In her third year at Ohio Northern, she now serves as the Poetry Editor of Polaris for 2009-2010. Along with writing, both music and photography have also become a big part of her life. Some of Khaty’s other passions are art, film, and literature.

	Merrill Miller is a senior Creative Writing major with a Sociology minor from the area of Pittsburgh, PA. She is a board member for Ohio Northern’s genre fiction chapbook, Ceridwen, as well as vice-president of Ohio Northern’s feminist club. When she isn’t writing papers, she enjoys reading, blogging, contemplating the meaning of life, or just wasting time on YouTube. After finishing her degree in Creative Writing, she’s torn between becoming a starving writer or a starving graduate student.

	Rachael Prokop is a senior creative writing major. She has been the editor of Polaris since 2007. Rachael is a member of the English honorary Sigma Tau Delta and is involved in as many campus activities as she can find time for. She is currently working on her first novel and trying to figure out what she is going to do after graduation.

	Tracy Campbell is a third-year Creative Writing major.

For more information about the site, please contact eMEdia@ONUmediastudies.org.