About Me

Julie Boutwell-Peterson holds a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of South Dakota, where her research focused on immigrant and refugee narratives as well as creative nonfiction essays and children’s literature. She received an M.A. in English from Auburn University and a B.A.in philosophy from Wake Forest University. Prior to entering academia full-time, she worked as a newspaper journalist in North Carolina and Alabama and also taught English as a Second Language in Slovakia and Kazakhstan. Her creative writing has appeared in a number of publications including The American Scholar, Litro, and Ocean State Review. She is currently seeking representation for a children's fantasy novel and is working on a collection of creative nonfiction essays that blend cultural critique, literary criticism, memoir, philosophy, and popular science.

Ask Me About...

• Immigrant and refugee narratives
• Unique forms for writing creative non-fiction
• Publishing your creative work
• Writing as discovery
• Magical Realism, Dystopian Literature, Speculative Fiction, Travel Writing
• The meaning of life (I don’t have the answer; I just like to talk about it.)

Research

Creative

“The Wonder of It All.” The American Scholar, Winter 2025.

“A Question of Belief.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference (SAMLA), Jacksonville, Florida, November 2024.

“A Meditation on Human Beans.” Ocean State Review, Spring 2023. 

"How We Live With Death." Rathalla Review, Fall 2022. 

"On Being a Mother: 20 Observations." Litro Online, 5 November 2022. 

“The Beginning of the End.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference (SAMLA), Virtual, November 2022. 

The Ellows. Author Reading. Vermillion Literary Project, Vermillion, South Dakota, September 2022.

“On Death,” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference (PAMLA), Las Vegas, Nevada, November 2021. 

“No More: Observations on the Coming Sixth Extinction.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference (PAMLA), Virtual, November 2021. 

“Creation: In Reverse.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference (PAMLA), Virtual, November 2021. 

“Defamiliarization.” John R. Milton Conference, University of South Dakota, September 2021.

 “The Northern Hinterlands.” Tumbleweed Graduate Reading Series, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD, November 2019. 

“Parenting as an Art.” Family Forum, July/August 2009.

“May Our Children Be Our Teachers.” Family Forum, Nov./Dec. 2008. 

“On Becoming a Mother.” Family Forum, July/August 2006. 

“Coming Home: An Identity Test.” The Lutheran, Spring 2006.  

Critical

“How the Refugee (Re)defines Home: The Wide, Subversive Arc of Magical Realism in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference (SAMLA), Virtual, November 2021.

“‘Who are these people?’: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth Flips the Script.” Portals: A Journal in Comparative Literature, San Francisco State University, 12 July 2020. 

“‘Brains Full of Unawakened Power’: Immigrants and the Ethics of a Nation in Life in the Iron Mill.” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference (PAMLA), San Diego, Calif., November 2019.

“Teaching the Research Essay to Undergraduates.” University of South Dakota, New Graduate Student Summer Practicum, August 2019.