English Alumni Career Profiles

Fred taught English, video production and journalism at Middletown High School, and courses at Orange County Community College, Long Island University and New York Institute of Technology.

He earned a BA and MA in English from the University at Albany, an MA in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research and a PhD in communications from the European Graduate School.

In the 1990s, Fred and his journalism students at Middletown High School conducted video investigations into organized crime, illegal dumping and toxic landfills. Thirty years later, their work became the subject of the 2025 feature documentary Teenage Wasteland.

Fred is retired from teaching and lives in Middletown with his wife Denise. Their daughter Sadie lives in Manhattan. 

Kristen McCallum received her BA and MA in English from the University at Albany, SUNY. 

A writer and creative strategist from Mount Vernon, NY, she credits growing up with the adventures of her Jamaican family as the beginning of her fascination with stories and the ways they could be shared. 

The founder of SafeWordSociety, an initiative that highlighted the depth and beauty of lived experiences in historically-marginalized communities, Kristen has consulted for The Obama Foundation and Peoplmovr, among others. Free Girls is her debut novel.

Harris Lahti's short stories and criticism have appeared in BOMB, The Baffler, Southwest Review, Volume 0, Forever Magazine, and elsewhere. His debut novel, Foreclosure Gothic, was released in 2025 and was a finalist for the NYPL's Young Lions Fiction Award. 

He is a fiction editor at the literary magazine, FENCE, and a co-founder of the new press, Cash 4 Gold Books. 

For a living, he paints houses in New York's Hudson Valley, where he lives with his family. 

Learn more about Harris Lahtis.