Mike Odom received his B.A. in English Language and Literature from Mississippi State University in 1996 and attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focusing on American fiction between 1870 and the present day, the literature of the southern United States, African-American literature, postmodernism, and narratology.  He has been a member of the Specialized Faculty at the U of I since 2003, and including his years as a Teaching Assistant in the graduate program, he has a combined 27 years of post-secondary teaching experience.  He has recently served as the Specialized Faculty Assistant Director of Rhetoric, and he is currently serving as the Vice-President of the Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition.