Khristeena Lute,Writer and Scholar
A Southern transplant to the North, Khristeena has been living near the Adirondacks in upstate New York since 2016, when she finished her Ph.D. in English and took a full-time faculty position at SUNY Adirondack. Khristeena is a first-generation college student herself and so deeply enjoys working with community-college students.
Splitting her writing life between creative and academic topics provides the best of both worlds—in-depth research skills and knowledge combined with an eye for style and story.
She lives in the country on a small homestead with her husband and two teenaged children.
Creative Writing
Focusing mainly on historical and literary fiction, Khristeena’s creative writing is fueled by decades of literary study and research. Her first novel, Finding Grace & Grit, was released in May of 2021 by Thorncraft Publishing. In March 2022, she was a panelist on “Debuting with a Small Press” at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Academic Writing
Khristeena’s academic work includes various articles and book chapters on writers such Grace King, Evelyn Scott, and Katrina Trask. She earned an M.A. in English in 2012, completing a thesis on Kate Chopin and Grace King, and a Ph.D. in English in 2016 with a dissertation on Grace King. Her awards include the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activity, Richard C. and Virginia Peck Award, Albert L. and Ethel Carver Smith Competitive Scholarship, and numerous travel and conference grants.
Teaching
Khristeena has been an educator since 2004, when she took her first post teaching 7th Grade Literature in a barrio in southern Arizona. Since then, she has gone on to earn an M.Ed. and expanded her teaching to the college and university levels.
She has been teaching literature and composition at SUNY Adirondack since 2016, where she is a tenured professor. Her awards include the SUNY Adirondack President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and the John McDaniel Excellence in Teaching Award. Currently, she serves on the executive board of the SUNY Council on Writing (CoW).
Writing Center Work
In addition to teaching at SUNY Adirondack, Khristeena also directs the Center for Reading and Writing (CRW), the campus writing center. SUNY Adirondack’s CRW is rare in that the staff ranges from student-tutors all the way to doctorate-level professionals, resulting in a unique team that benefits from each and every member. She is currently on a teaching sabbatical to pursue several writing center projects and now also serves as the Two-Year College Representative on the steering committee for the Northeastern Writing Center Association (NEWCA).