Seton Hill College
Box 505
Greensburg, PA  15601
724-830-1040
tobin@setonhill.edu

1989-1992:         Adjunct Assistant Professor
                           Colorado School of Mines
                           Golden, Colorado

1984-1991:         Graduate Instructor, English
                           University of Colorado
                           Boulder, Colorado

• Director, Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction, 1998-present
• Seton Hill College Professor of the Year, 2000
• Chair, English Department, 1996-97
• Co-Chair, Middle States Steering Committee
• Multicultural Diversity Awareness Task Force
• Entrepreneurial Studies Advisory Board
• Graduate Council
• Search Committees:  Director of Development, Director of the Library, Proposal Writer, Biology Faculty, Communications Faculty
• Reading Partner, Speaker:  Beginning with Books Family Literacy Program

Scholarly Publications

• "Romantic Suspense and the Gothic Tradition."  Proceedings, Symposium on Romance in the New Millennium.  Forthcoming, 2002
• "Purity, Passion, and Power in Inspirational Romance."  Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2001
• "Paranormal Romance:  Secrets of the Female Fantastic."  Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Winter 2001
• "Stomping on the Shoulders of Giants:  Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex.  Modern Retellings of Chivalric Tales, ed. Gloria Allaire.  London:  Ashgate, 1999
• "Introducing Medieval Romance Via Popular Films:  Bringing the Other Closer."  Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, Winter 1998
• "Gender Anxiety in Arthurian Romance."  Extrapolation, 1997
• "Why Change the Arthur Story?  Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon," Extrapolation, Summer, 1993
• "Give the Saint Her Due:  Hagiographical Values for Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair."  Studia Mystica, Summer/Fall 1991
• "Contemporary Medievalism as a Teaching Tool.  Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, Fall 1999

Selected Presentations

• "Purity, Passion, and Peril in Inspirational Romance."  Popular Culture Association, 2001
• "Success Secrets of Top-Achieving Writers."  Romance Writers of America National Convention, 2000
• "Romance Fiction:  Power or Poison?"  Popular Culture Association, 2000
• "The Fantastic in Paranormal Romance."  International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, 2000
• "What Makes a Novel a RITA Finalist?"  Romance Writers of America National Convention, 1999
• "From Oppression to Empowerment:  Changing Critical Views of Romance Fiction."  Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, San Diego, 1999
• "'It's Not Boring'":  Teaching Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Generation X."  International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Fort Lauderdale, March 1998
• "A Kid in King Arthur's Court:  Solving the Arthurian Gender Problem."  Medieval Institute, Kalamazoo, May, 1997
• "Permutations of Plotting," Ligonier Valley Writers' Workshop, Fall, 1996
• "Teaching Medieval Romance Via Popular Films."  Teaching the Middle Ages Conference, Missoula, June, 1995

Short Fiction

• "Fairy Tales."  The Sun, May 2001
• "Memorial."  The Loyalhanna Review, 1999
• "Showdown."  The Loyalhanna Review, 1998
• "Going Nowhere Fast."  Pittsburgh Quarterly, Summer 1996
• "Anniversary Blues."  Raystown Review, 1995
• "Night Crew,"  Pennsylvania English, 1994
• "A Great Ex,"  The Single Scene, Fall 1992

Novel

• Mountain Home, Silhouette, 1989 (as Erika Favor)

Ph.D., English
Dissertation:  To Seek Another World:  Arthurian Romance as Cultural Critique
University of Colorado at Boulder
1991

M.A., English
Thesis:  Writing bout writing in Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
1984

B.A., English
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
1982