Dr. James Blasingame focuses on young adult literature, secondary writing instruction, preparing pre-service teachers, and cowboy poetry. He is co-editor of The ALAN Review, a journal devoted entirely to young adult literature and sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. He also created the Books for Adolescents pages of the Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy, which is sponsored by the International Reading Association. Dr. Blasingame is the author of Books That Don’t Bore ‘Em: Young Adult Literature for Today’s Generation (Scholastic, 2007), Gary Paulsen (Teen Reads: Student Companions to Young Adult Literature) (Greenwood Press 2007), Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools (Pearson, Prentice-Hall 2004), and They Rhymed with Their Boots On: A Teacher’s Guide to Cowboy Poetry (The Writing Conference, 2000). He has also published over 60 interviews with poets and authors of young adult literature and over 100 book reviews in VOYA, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, The ALAN Review and English Journal. Dr. Blasingame creates the annual Honor List of young adult literature for English Journal along with Dr. Alleen Nilsen and Dr. Ken Donelson. He has given presentations performing cowboy poetry at the National Council of Teachers of English convention, the International Reading Association, and the Western States Conference on Rhetoric and Composition.

Dr. Blasingame is past president of the Arizona English Teachers’ Association and is the 2008 ASU Professor of the Year. He is the 2008 International Reading Association Arbuthnot Award winner for outstanding professor of children’s and young adult literature. He was the recipient of the 2007 ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award for the Humanities and one of eleven ASU professors to be given the 2007 Arizona State University Parents’ Association Professor of the Year Special Recognition Award.

Before coming to ASU in 2000, Dr. Blasingame spent twenty-four years in secondary education including: three years in high school administration at Interstate 35 High School (Truro, Iowa), and Bishop Miege High School (Shawnee Mission, Kansas); eighteen years in English education at Girls and Boys Town High School (Boys Town, Nebraska); American Fork High School (American Fork, Utah); and Dowling High School (West Des Moines, Iowa). He also spent two years coaching college athletics at Western State College (Gunnison, Colorado) and Simpson College (Simpson, Iowa).