Dakota DeFiore graduated from Millersville University of Pennsylvania in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, Writing Studies. She holds an M.F.A. in Prose Fiction from Mills College (2014) and an M.Ed. in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum from the University of Oklahoma (2019). Dakota is a mother of two young daughters, appreciates all things music, and is an astrophysics/nature enthusiast (nerd). Outside of her editorial work for Red Rock Review, Dakota works as a professor of English at the College of Southern Nevada where she teaches writing and literature. When she’s not teaching or making memories with her family, you can find Dakota drafting new creative works of prose, pushing medium boundaries, and organizing community-centered literary events across the Las Vegas valley.

 

Dakota's work often pushes conventional boundaries, so it's no surprise she considers herself a hybrid, as well. Standing as equal parts artist and educator, Dakota aims for her classrooms to be spaces where scholarship and storytelling are never defined in a strict dichotomy. Rather, these titles act as bookends that have the potential to reveal complementary intersections for meaning making. Exploring between these poles of wisdom takes an active approach and creativity, two things Dakota puts to work as she seeks to subvert conventional academic discourse to include a multitude of missing perspectives. ​