By Amanda Lenox

Staff Writer

Professor Martha Stoddard-Holmes is a prominent figure in not only the Literature and Writing department, but also to the CSUSM campus as a whole. Her educational background includes a B.A. in English from Cornell University, an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Colorado.

She first taught part-time for two years and then used her skills in verbal communication to get a job in corporate communications at a mining company. Finding herself unhappy with the job because her co-workers did not want to talk about books, she began writing in secret. After getting published, she explained that she decided to get her master’s degree “in creative writing to have more time to write and to treat it with more respect.”

She then received her doctorate, focusing on Victorian Literature, which sparked her interest “in the history of ideas about the body (through Victorian representations of disability—think Tiny Tim [from A Christmas Carol], for example).”

Stoddard-Holmes will be going on sabbatical during the Spring 2014 semester. Don’t worry though; she will be back teaching for Fall 2014.

During her sabbatical, she will be researching the public culture of cancer, including what we see in the media and “how it shapes knowledge and expectations, including health-seeking behaviors (i.e. going to the doctor to find out what’s wrong).”

After being diagnosed and treated for ovarian cancer, she will “focus on ovarian cancer experiences and lack of public awareness or ability to imagine symptoms until it is too late for a good prognosis.”

She also plans to sketch out a graphic narrative (comic) of ovarian cancer.

Being a professor at CSUSM has allowed Stoddard-Holmes to find her niche in the literature community.

“I applied for a job and was one of the lucky ones to get a tenure track job after getting a Ph.D. [Literature is] a cool department in so many ways–the only place that interviewed me that was actually interested in the interdisciplinarity of my research,” Stoddard-Holmes said.

A list of some of the classes Stoddard-Holmes teaches include Survey of British Literature, Literature and Health, Children’s Literature, Jane Austen into Film and Creative Writing.

“I learn continually from my students, who are intelligent, interesting and kind people who tend to laugh at my jokes. It is a privilege to help people see their own gifts and which ones they haven’t unwrapped yet—what the possibilities are in life and education,” Stoddard-Holmes said.

She hopes that students who take her classes learn that “reading and writing are wonderful forms of discovery and power. Reading a really good book can change your life and get you through the worst possible times. […] Students have the power to rewrite the scripts of their lives.”