Col. Mary Stewart Atwell came to VMI in 2015. Previously, she taught at Cal Poly State University and Missouri State University. She received her B.A. from Hollins University, her M.A. from the University of Virginia, and her M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Col. Atwell teaches courses in British literature and creative writing, specializing in fiction. She serves as the Institute Pre-Law Advisor and the Alumni Network Coordinator in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies.
Col. Atwell is the author of the novels The Good Ones (Harper Books) and Wild Girls (Scribner). Her short fiction has appeared in Epoch and Alaska Quarterly Review, among other journals, and in the anthologies Best New American Voices and Best American Mystery Stories. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, and The Writer’s Chronicle, and in the anthology Paperback Writer: Literary Advice into the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave).
Professor
English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies