Courtney Huse-Wika

Dr. Courtney Huse Wika, Professor of English and Distinguished Faculty, received her BA in philosophy and English from Augustana University, and her MA and PHD in English with a specialization in creative writing from the University of South Dakota. She specializes in creative writing, young adult literature, and cultural studies.

She is the author of Perch, a book of nature poetry from Anchor and Plume Press. In 2024, she was selected as one of nine international writers to work with novelist Ramona Ausubel for a writing workshop in in Paris, France. In 2023, she was named a finalist in the international New Millennium Writing Awards and long-listed for the national Rising Poet Prize. Other recognitions include a long-list for the 2022 Emerging Voices prize in poetry, finalist for the 2021 James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review, and Honorable Mention in the international 2020 New Millennium Writing Awards. Her creative work has appeared in diverse journals including North American Review, South Dakota Review, CALYX, New Ohio Review, The Halcyone Review, South Dakota in Poems, Kindred, South Dakota Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, Scissors and Spackle, Backwards City Review, Paddlefish, 605 Magazine, Life on the Farm and Ranch: A South Dakota Anthology, and the Macguffin.

Her collaborative work with artist Becky Grismer has also appeared in numerous juried shows and galleries in the United States. Her most recent critical publications are collaborations with Dr. Dan May from mathematics, which investigate the intersections of math and poetry: “The Poetics of a Cyclic Directed Graph,” and “Galaxies Containing Infinite Worlds: Poetry from Finite Projective Planes.” Her critical work has also interrogated topics from gender in young adult literature to the uncanny in popular culture, including “Beyond Bella: Rewriting Love and the Female Hero in Young Adult Literature;” “She’s Not Me: Confrontations with Monstrous Doubles in Adolescent Fantasy Texts;” and “Policing the Rift: The Monstrous and the Uncanny in Torchwood:" Illuminating Torchwood: Essays on Narrative, Character and Sexuality in the BBC Series.

Dr. Huse Wika is the contact for the English department and the Creative Writing minor and is the the organizer of the Geek Speak lecture series. Her service to the university has included director of both the University Honors Program and the Writing Assistance Center, as well as the steering committee of the Veterans Legacy Program. She currently serves on the college Promotion and Tenure committee, Faculty Senate, and the Honors Advisory Council. A Spearfish native, her happiest day was returning to teach at Black Hills State University.