Short Bio

Todd Robert Petersen lives in Cedar City, Utah with his wife and three children. He is a Professor of English and the director of Southern Utah University's project-based learning program. Petersen is the author of two books published locally: Long After Dark (2007) and Rift (2009). His recent academic work focuses on film and television.

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Long Bio

Todd Robert Petersen grew up in Portland, Oregon. His undergraduate degree is in Film from the University of Oregon. After college he moved to Orcas Island in the Puget Sound and worked for the YMCA of Seattle at Camp Orkila. In the summers he worked for camping services, in the fall and spring he was an assistant program director for the Outdoor Environmental Education program, in charge of the college intern program and the director of curriculum.

From there, Petersen moved to Flagstaff, Arizona and earned an MA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing at Northern Arizona University. During that time, he was one of two assistant directors of the campus tutoring center. He was also one of the founders of Thin Air, the NAU English Department's literary magazine. From Flagstaff, Petersen moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma to pursue a PhD in English, where he studied with Brian Evenson. while there he taught composition, held a post as one of five Assistant Composition Directors, and was the Managing and Production Editor of the Cimmeron Review. 

Petersen's PhD is in English with an emphasis in Fictional Rhetoric and Critical Theory. From 2001-2013 Petersen taught in the English Department at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. Currently, he is SUU's director of Project-Based Learning.

Todd Robert Petersen has published two books of fiction, and a number of short stories, essays, and poems. Information on those publications can be found elsewhere on this website.