Writing Consultant and Staff Bios

Each of our writing consultants is highly qualified. Just see what they've accomplished! To get in touch with any of them, email the Writing Lab at WritingLab@unt.edu.

Writing Consultants

Ami Long
Ami Long is a junior at UNT. She is from Cedar Hill, Texas, and she is eager to tutor fellow students in the areas of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. She is a Technical Communications major and she hopes to become some kind of technical writer when she grows up because she's still a child at heart and refuses to believe she's all grown up. She thinks you should come to the Writing Lab and see her so she can help you with any questions you have!

Crystal Elerson
Crystal Elerson studies at the University of North Texas for her doctoral degree in English with a concentration in Technical Communication. Her current research examines the historical and modern value of the collaboration process for creating enduring instruction manuals in government, business, and classroom settings. After she graduates with her PhD (projected for May 2012), Elerson plans to seek a teaching position where she can continue her scholarly research. Future projects will include research, surveys, and articles on text messaging in the business world. Additionally, Elerson will research comic strips to study how she can use them to teach concepts effectively in the classroom.

Dustin Aguilar
Dustin has a BA in Creative Writing from UNT and is currently pursuing is a Masters in ESL. He is also an intern at IELI, teaching English to foreigners from all over the world. If you are a student learning English as a second language, Dustin is hear to help you pick up the language faster and help you impress your professors with world-class papers. He says, "Sometimes foreigners ask the trickiest English questions, but I love the challenge."

Elise Matthews
Elise is a graduate student and has a BA in English Literature (with minors in French and philosophy) from UNT. OCD-induced perfectionism makes her check her own papers over and over and over for all kinds of errors (grammar, punctuation, whether or not each word is absolutely the perfect choice—you know, the usual stuff), so she has lots of practice! She totally doesn't mind letting students take advantage of her neurosis.

Hannah Moxley
Hannah Moxley is a sophomore at UNT. She is a Journalism major with a concentration in news, and she studies English as a minor. She is from Abilene, TX, and ultimately wants to write for a major newspaper. She is very excited to help students correct their grammar and punctuation mistakes. Though she is the youngest consultant in the lab, she would love to improve your scholarly language any day!

James Bates
James is a graduate student in the English Department, specializing in literature studies. He has taught College Writing I and II at UNT and is familiar with both Chicago and MLA formatting styles. He is currently in his third semester at the Writing Lab.

John Guest
John Guest is more than a man--he's a writing tutor. His idea of fun is analyzing sentences on a morpho-syntactic level while searching for any ambiguities, or discrepancies, between various constituents. John specializes in working with ESL students, tutoring for the GSP and helping with any general writing concerns you may have. He is currently a graduate student studying linguistics and computer science (which some people in the lab dub 'robot linguistics'), but also enjoys literature, economics, geography, logic, film and mathematics. If he goes on a tangent in one of these areas, just stop him and remind him that he is a writing tutor. Please come see him if you want a descriptive linguistic approach to writing a concise and coherent paper!

Jordan Jackson
"Hello, fellow students!" Jordan Jackson says. Though her name is Jordan Jackson, everyone calls her Jo. She graduated summa cum laude from UNT in May 2011 with a BA in English Literature and a double minor in French and Social Sciences. In August 2011, she entered the graduate program at Toulouse to pursue a Master's in Technical Writing. She also plans to continue her studies in French by getting a certificate in Professional French. She has worked at the UNT Writing Lab since August 2010, and she loves everything about her job! Please come see her about any troubles you may have with any aspect of writing; if she doesn't know the answer, then you both can learn something new!

Lance Weihmuller
Lance serves as the designated tutor for all Developmental Writing (TECM 1200) classes. He is an undergraduate at UNT studying English with a concentration in Language Arts, whose favorite punctuation mark is the m dash. He is determined to assist you through any and all stages of the writing process. His personal background has granted him a strong ear for critiquing voice while his obsessive-compulsive tendencies have disciplined him in the rules of grammar and punctuation. In his free time, he enjoys listening to obscure music, putting caffeine in his body, and striving to look like a young Morrissey.

Laura Miller
Laura attended UTD for her BA in literary studies and is currently making progress toward her MA in creative writing at UNT. She has three years of experience in copy editing and is mostly undefeated in Scrabble. She especially enjoys red-inking personal essays, short stories, and literary theses, but she welcomes writing-related questions of all kinds. Her favorite word is effluvium.

Luke Heister
Luke began his stint at the Writing Lab while he was an undergraduate studying literature and philosophy. He graduated in the spring of 2011 and is now a full-fledged master's student in literature. He's still just as helpful when it comes to aiding your efforts to grasp concepts in the daunting arena of punctuation, and he is also adept in helping you craft fine papers of literary analysis and treatises of philosophical exposition.

Megan Gary
Megan is in her third year of undergraduate English and no stranger to the tricky rules of punctuation and grammar. While her concentration is in literature, she welcomes all subjects and begs your patience with her decidedly liberal arts-based knowledge. After graduating, she hopes to enter the publishing field, specifically acquisitions and editorial, so tutoring is great practice.

Michelle Johnson
Michelle loves to read, which is evidenced by her recently acquired BA in English Literature. She is now working towards an MA in Linguistics and a Texas teaching certification. Her goal is to teach middle/high school students to love reading as much as she does. Until then, she is eager to help you with any problems you may encounter while writing all those pesky college papers.

Director of the UNT Writing Lab

Dr. Kathryn Raign
Dr. Kathryn Rosser Raign has a PhD in rhetoric and composition from Texas Christian University. Dr. Raign enjoys working with students and encourages you to contact her if you have any questions or concerns regarding your writing courses, your instructors, or your experiences in the lab.

Administrative Specialist

Nora Lewis
Nora has a BA in General Studies (minors in Art History, History and Sociology) from UNT, but she frequently fantasizes about hitting the lottery and becoming a full-time poet/nonfiction writer, found-objects artist, and grassroots civil rights activist. Until that day comes, she will use her well-managed OCD and love of Post-its to help the Writing Lab run smoothly and to report GSP scores as quickly as possible.

Assistant Director of the UNT Writing Lab

Daniel Heffner
Daniel is currently undertaking an MA in poetry at UNT. He has always loved reading, from Hank the Cowdog to the Illiad, and he has written many a paper about various short stories, novels, and poems. Strangely enough, he often enjoys writing essays. He has been working at the UNT Writing Lab for quite a while now, and he is happy to be able to help you with whatever is difficult for you about the art of writing (or taking the GSP).

Senior Writing Consultant

John Rose
John has a BA in English Literature and Language from Texas Tech University and a MA in Creative Writing from UNT. He spends most of his free time reading, writing, wishing he was at the beach, and trying to keep his wife's cat from hurting their dog.