Current Editorial Staff

Editor-in-Chief
Zach Watkins is an English-Philosophy major at the University of New Mexico. He presented his paper on the "Miltonic Satan in Tolkien’s The Silmarillion" at the Tolkien 2005 International Conference in Birmingham, England. This paper was published in the premiere issue of The Grey Book. He has also presented papers at the 2007 Southwest and Texas Popular Culture and Amercian Culture Conference and served as the 2006-2007 President of the UNM Hobbit Society.

Managing Editor
Leslie A. Donovan is an Associate Professor of the University Honors Program at the University of New Mexico where she teaches a variety of interdisciplinary courses on medieval culture, small press publications, and Tolkien. Her publications include works on Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon women saints, nontraditional Honors pedagogies, and J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2002, her article "The Valkyrie Reflex in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, Shelob, Éowyn, and Arwen" appeared in Tolkien The Medievalist, edited by Jane Chance. She has also published pieces in the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia and presented on Tolkien at the 2007 Southwest and Texas Popular Culture and Amercian Culture Conference.

Editorial Staff for Volume 1, 2005
For the premiere issue of the journal, the five works published were selected from peer-reviewed submissions by the twelve undergraduate students and one graduate student enrolled in Professor Leslie A. Donovan’s Spring 2005 400-level Honors course. “Tolkien Studies for Advanced Readers: The Less Traveled Road.” Students in this course wrote articles, served on the editorial selection board, edited each of the accepted articles, and prepared the website for the journal as well as a mini-conference at UNM in which all students in the class presented the articles they submitted for consideration.

Mike Anderson, in addition to being an avid Tolkien fan, studies electrical engineering at the University of New Mexico. Mike is a founding member of the UNM Hobbit Society and is responsible for the management (or mismanagement) of the Society webpage. Mike loves strategy war games, drawing, and playing bass guitar.

Dawn Catanach enjoys scrambling her brains with dead languages when she’s not coming up with crazy things with which to connect Tolkien’s work

Jason Degani was born January 24, 1983 (1/24) at 1:24 pm. A native of Rio Rancho, NM, he moved to Roswell, NM ("Alien Capital of the World") at age 4. He fears that he suffers from multiple-personality disorder, evidenced by his two favorite television shows being “The West Wing” and “SpongeBob Squarepants.” Himself a Catholic, Jason is particularly attracted to the religious and spiritual themes in Tolkien's work. He will graduate this spring with B.A. degree in Physics and Astrophysics and a minor in Biology. He will be attending the University of New Mexico School of Medicine next August with aspirations of becoming a pediatric surgeon.

Kaity Glarborg is a psychology major minoring in Art History at the University of New Mexico. Tolkien is one of her favorite authors, though she thinks The Lord of the Rings would have been better had it contained more female villains.

Wendy Haase lives in New Mexico, where she has been a resident for eight years, although she was born in California. A sophomore at the University of New Mexico, she plans to major in art history. She first became interested in Tolkien’s works in 2002, thanks to Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films. Wendy enjoys reading in her spare time; her favorite works include the Harry Potter series, James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels, and Stephen King’s books.

Caitlin M. Kirkland is a sophomore at the University of New Mexico majoring in foreign languages; this love of strange tongues aids her enjoyment of Tolkien’s varied created languages.

Sorrel LaVigne was introduced to Tolkien at age twelve with The Hobbit. She is double majoring in music and nursing at the University of New Mexico and is the current president of the UNM Hobbit Society. She hopes to become a pediatric music therapist. She loves world traveling, elephish, and girabbits.

Urvashi Parkhani is currently a sophomore at the University of New Mexico, where she is earning her degree in Political Science and French. Later in her academic career she hopes to go to law school. J.R.R. Tolkien is her favorite author, though she thinks that at the end of The Lord of the Rings Sauron should have gotten the ring. (Only kidding!)

Trey Smith is an activist, writer, and soon-to-be bestselling author. He will graduate from the University of New Mexico this May with a degree in English/Philosophy. Trey has a broad array of interests, ranging from Greco-Roman mythology to environmental history. He recently won a top prize at UNM’s Undergraduate Research Symposium for his work on the U.S. electoral system and also won the UNM Outstanding Senior of the Year award. However, Trey’s first love will always be the works of Tolkien. He firmly believes that all of life’s truths and the secret to happiness can be found in Tolkien’s work.

Rosamond Stewart is a Statistics major with a minor in Dance at the University of New Mexico. She has begun a project of recording Tolkien’s art through body modification. She tries to live her life as all the good Tolkien characters have, taking his themes to heart.

Christopher Suski is majoring in Computer Science and minoring in History at the University of New Mexico.

Zach Watkins is a proud English major at the University of New Mexico and is scheduled to present his paper on the Miltonic Satan in Tolkien’s The Silmarillion at the Tolkien 2005 Conference in Birmingham, England. Besides harboring a pipedream of becoming a rock star, Zach loves the work of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the Star Wars films, peanut M&M’s, and dressing like a true native of the Shire.

Senior Editorial Assistant
Astrid Winegar is a graduate student in the Comparative Literature/Cultural Studies department at the University of New Mexico and teaches Latin for the UNM Classics department. A Tolkien fan since high school, Astrid concentrates her studies on the influences of Norse mythology on Tolkien's works in addition to postcolonial and Orientalist discourses in The Lord of the Rings. Astrid is married and has two daughters. One used to like Orlando Bloom, but dreads reading The Hobbit in her 8th grade class; and the other hates anything even remotely involved with Middle-earth (including Led Zeppelin).