Mary-Jeane Smoller-Phillips has taught creative writing and composition at UWM since 1987. She has earned the Wisconsin Key Award, the Wisconsin English Award and is a two-time recipient of the Mae Gales Award for Short Fiction. She served for three years as senior fiction editor of the award-winning magazine, Cream City Review. Most recently, her first novel, "Wake: A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of Franklin County, Tennessee," was signed with Curtis Brown of New York.