Lyz Duesterhoeft
Lyz Duesterhoeft
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Creative Writing: Literary criticism through the lenses of the liminal and folklore; approaching fandom through folklore & ethnography; creative writing pedagogy through the fantasy genre
Lyz received her Bachelors of Arts with Honors in English Literature, along with a minor in Folkore & Mythology, from George Mason University in 2023. The culminating work of her degree produced a thesis on examining what the fantasy genre can bring to undergraduate creative writing pedagogy. Notably, one of her ethnographic papers on pseudonym use in fandom spaces won The Margaret Yocom Folklore Prize in 2021.
She is currently continuing her academic journey with George Mason by pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing as a Fiction candidate. Her short story, "Undertow," won a Mary Roberts Rinehart Award in 2021, and she is the author of the self-published title, Red Iron Alchemy.
Selected Publications
"The Call," a short story published in The Literary Hatchet, issue #39, July 2025.