Linaya L. Leaf
Professor of English
Professor of Theatre Arts
B.A. Linfield College
M.A. Northwestern University
Ph.D. University of Oregon
406.657.1118
Morledge-Kimball 222
leafl@rocky.edu
Biography
Professor Leaf received her bachelor of arts degree from Linfield College, her master of arts from Northwestern University, and her Ph.D from the University of Oregon. She completed a post doctoral year in dramatic literature/theater history and poetry writing at the University of California, Davis. She has taught 30 years in colleges and universities, twenty of them at Rocky Mountain College. She has also taught English and theatre in Micronesia, Sweden and has studied with and taught a course for one of RMC's tribal partners, the Fort Peck Tribes (Assiniboine and Sioux).
Linaya teaches poetry and a wide range of dramatic literature courses (modern, classical, isms in modern drama, women playwrights, Shakespeare) as well as multicultural courses such as African American Literature, Native American Literature and Contemporary World Fiction. She collaborates with colleagues in teaching such freshman courses as Writing and Cinema, Writing and Psychology, and Writing and Music. Dear to her heart are the creative courses she teaches: Creative Drama, Advanced Imaginative Writing and Senior Seminar in Writing: Soliloquy.
When I was thirteen, I played the part of ‘Slightly Soiled', one of the lost boys in Peter Pan. I also began to write poetry. My interests still center around English and theatre. The last play I directed at RMC was an expressionistic drama in which most of the characters were insects, The Insect Play. On my English side, I coordinate the annual student writing competition and serve as faculty advisor for the student literary journal, Soliloquy. My favorite get away places are a Swedish poet's cottage in my back years and Lopez Island in Northern Washington, where eagles swoop, bunnies hop and last year a llama licked my hand. When I can, I travel and teach internationally. And for fun, I write poetry, play the piano and try to keep one step ahead of my three cats.
