Bio:Frank Coffman

Frank Coffman is Professor of English and Journalism at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois. In addition to instructing courses in freshman rhetoric, literature, creative writing, and journalism, he advises the award-winning student newspaper, The Valley Forge.

He earned a B.A. in English and Secondary Education from Millikin University (Decatur, Illinois); an M.A. in English (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); an M.S. in Journalism (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); and completed all but his dissertation (A.B.D.) in English (Northern Illinois University). Comprehensive Exams passed: 19th c. British Literature, Modern British Literature, and American Literature Since the Civil War.

He has special interests in the rise and relevance of Popular Imaginative Literature across the genres of Adventure, Detection & Mystery, Fantasy, Horror & the Supernatural, and Science Fiction; in Rhetorical, Formalist, and Myth/Symbol literary criticism; and in Stylometric Analysis of Texts working toward theories of Computer-Assisted Literary Criticism (CALC) and "Themetric" Analysis.