DePaul University: A Celebration of English Department Faculty

Recently named as 6th Illinois Poet Laureate, writer Mark Turcotte (Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe) spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States.

Turcotte is author of the books, The Feathered Heart; Songs of Our Ancestors; a chapbook, Road Noise; a bilingual collection, Le Chant de la Route; and Exploding Chippewas.

He lives in Chicago with his wife, Susan, and since 2009 has been Senior Lecturer and Distinguished-Writer-In-Residence in the English Deptartment at DePaul University.

Mark Francis Arendt is a poet and fiction writer. He teaches at DePaul.

Tara Betts is the author of the poetry collections Refuse to Disappear, Break the Habit, and Arc & Hue. 

Tara currently teaches at DePaul University's Peace Studies Program and the Solstice MFA Program. Her poems, essays, and stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.

Chris Green is the author of five books of poetry: most recently, The Dead Zoo (Bee Box Press, 2025). His poems have appeared in such publications as Poetry and The New York Times. 

He’s a founding editor of Big Shoulders Books and also the editor of the annual anthology, DePaul’s Blue Book: Best American High School Writing.

Kathleen Rooney is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection Where Are the Snows, winner of the XJ Kennedy Prize from Texas Review Press, and the picture book Leaf Town Forever, co-written with Beth Rooney and illustrated by Betsy Bowen.