The Writing Center Consultants

Dr. Jim Adams, interim Director of the Writing Center (B.A., English, VMI ‘7 1; M.A., English Literature, James Madison University; Ed. D, Educational Leadership, University of Tennessee). Starting as the cadet editor-in-chief of the VMI yearbook, Jim Adams worked as an Army magazine editor, as an advertising agency creative director, and as a copy production manager. His higher education public relations and marketing career began in 1977 and in 2009 he retired as CEO of the VMI Foundation. He currently teaches in the VMI English and Fine Arts Department and is in his second year as acting director of the VMI Writing Center.

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Mrs. Judy Strang, Writing Consultant (M.A., William & Mary), has taught composition at the College of William and Mary, the University of Richmond, Randolph-Macon Woman's College and Lynchburg College. She is a writing consultant at the Williams School Communication Center of Washington and Lee University and at Lynchburg College’s School of Business and Economics. She also edits the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues website. Strang has been with the VMI Writing Center since its inception in 1996.

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Ms. Nina Salmon, Writing Consultant (M.Ed., Lynchburg College), is an assistant professor of English at Lynchburg College, where she serves as assistant director of LCSR and Senior Symposium. She has taught classes in composition, literature, technical writing, and creative writing at Lynchburg College, Central Virginia Community College and the Virginia Military Institute. In addition to teaching, she works as a writing consultant at VMI and Washington and Lee University.

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Mr. Michael L. Smith, Writing Consultant (M.S., University of Wisconsin – Madison), was a senior press officer and speech writer with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service and taught news writing at its National Conservation Training Center. He is also a freelance outdoor writer and natural resources consultant.

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Mr. George Abry, Writing Consultant (M.A., The Johns Hopkins University) is a professional writer whose interests include travel writing and historic preservation. He was a regular contributor to the real estate section of The Times Picayune and Old House Journal magazine, and covered New Orleans tourism for TravelAgeWest, a west coast travel industry publication. In addition to feature writing, he has worked on a number of technical writing and public history projects. He served as historian for the City of Roanoke Residential Pattern Book project, and researched and wrote the historic context for an Architectural Survey of Botetourt County, VA; he co-wrote a handbook of Commercial Design Guidelines for the City of Bluefield, WV.

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Ms. Kristina Newberry, Writing Consultant (M.F.A., Creative Writing, Hollins University), has published a variety of stories and essays. Her work has recently appeared in The Southern Review, The Louisville Review, Calyx, Nimrod, Arts & Letters, Gulf Stream, Confrontation, and elsewhere. Her short fiction was a finalist in Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction, Fiction Open, and Family Matters contests, as well as for 2010 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her story, "Champions of the World," was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

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Ms. Elise Sheffield, Writing Consultant, (MTS, Harvard University), is Education Director at Boxer wood Nature Center in Lexington and an experienced grant writer; she has also taught composition, non-fiction reflective writing, and literature at Southern Virginia University.

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