Lisa Spangler (left) defeated Shanna Young in the Invicta FC Bantamweight Division. Kansas City, Missouri, September 2018.
Ireland Writing Retreat
May-June, 2017
In the spring of 2017, I participated in a five-week writing retreat throughout Ireland where I taught young school children the art of storytelling as well as researched the history and culture of Irish combat sports.
During this time, I attended Cage Warriors 84 in London (where I met Brad "One Punch" Pickett), Haskins vs. Burnett in Belfast, and even took a Muay Thai class at Straight Blast Gym Ireland, home to Conor McGregor's main training camp.
Andalusia in Andalucía: An International Conference on Flannery O'Connor
Seville, Spain
June 22-25, 2017
I presented a paper at an international conference on short story writer and novelist Flannery O'Conner. My paper "Flannery’s Flashbacks: Using Contextual Frame Theory to Explain How Shifts in Time Expand the Reader’s Cognitive Processing" examined O’Connor's precise use of temporal frames to facilitate her grotesque characters and Southern realist settings. This conference was hosted by Universidad Loyola Andalucía and the Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage.
