Thesis Writing Specialist
Mia Alvarado
Tutt Library 234
malvarado@abadiadetortoreos.com
719-389-6665

Mary Margaret Alvarado is the author of Hey Folly (Dos Madres), a book of poems. Her nonfiction and poetry have been published in VQR, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, The Hairpin, The Kenyon Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Iowa Review, The New Orleans Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and a Provost's Post-Graduate Writing Fellow. Before joining Colorado College, she was a senior instructor in creative writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, an editorial assistant at Harper's Magazine, and the Romaine Coombe writer-in-residence at Cincinnati's Seven Hills School. She is the mother of three young girls and the farmer of her yard. She goes by Mia.

What students are asking:

How can South Africa serve as a case study for the impact of coal production on communities?

What role does psychoanalytic theory play in art therapy and the healing of embodied trauma in adults?

How are female Moroccan immigrants represented in Spanish literature and film?

What incentivizes the purchasing of electric vehicles in the United States?

How is Islamic art curated in the United States post-9/11?

What is the role of home, nostalgia, and the industrialization of England in Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles?

What can be learned about the women of the rural San Luis Valley through the examination of a World War I-era stache that was found there?

Are Colorado voters ready for a carbon tax?

What are the predator/prey dynamics of mountain lions and elk in sub-alpine ecosystems?

How was outdoor-ed whitewashed and to what end?

How was the union of aesthetics and ethics ruptured in Nabokov's Lolita and to what end?

What students are saying:

"It is truly an honor to know and have worked with you. The most immense thank you: for helping me through the beginnings of my thesis. For your encouragement, kindness, and wisdom as the writing began...As far as the swarm: I find it extremely useful to work in the company of other individuals. It's helpful to work together, to feel motivated by the pressure of others, to have a dedicated space for writing and reading, and researching, and to feel accountable to others. Courses/opportunities/meetings such as these really ought to be continued for the benefit of everyone (including those who hope that I might finish my thesis haha). Again, I can't tell you how useful and pleasurable this experience as a whole has been. My deepest thanks."-Harper

"Thank you very much for your time, attention, ideas, and enthusiasm in the thesis class. I hope more folks in creative majors take the class in the future, as I found it surprisingly helpful. Working with you 1:1, I felt supported and encouraged to think across disciplines and consider how the research and reading strategies could apply to me too. I also can't thank you enough for introducing me to asemic writing, it's taken over my life in the best way possible."-Ysa

"I'm really glad I took this half-block. I really wanted time to focus only on my thesis, and this half-block really provided that for me. Initially, I was worried that this half-block wouldn't be helpful, but in reality, it was truly the best thing I could have done during half-block. I'm really glad that I took it!"-Lexi

"Thesis boot camp over half-block was extremely helpful. The structure allowed me to work for more hours, in a more focused way compared to what I would have done on my own. it allowed me to pick up momentum on my thesis. I think that this half-block reduced a lot of the stress that I could have potentially experienced during the semester."-Chelo