"Move over, Runnin' Rebels; hello, Writing Rebels" proclaimed a recent article in the Las Vegas Sun. The story highlighted the accolades UNLV's creative writing programs garnered in The Atlantic, a venerable arbiter of literary taste.

Douglas Unger, interim chair of the English department, learned the magazine was interested in UNLV when a fact-checker called to verify some details. "I knew from the call that the Schaeffer Ph.D. program was selected as one of the top five creative writing programs in the country," Unger says. "But the bonus, when the magazine came out, was that the MFA program made it into the list of top five unique and innovative programs."

That's heady stuff for programs founded less than a decade ago. The ranking, Unger says, recognizes the "vision that many of us had of building a literary art culture that fit well within Las Vegas and asserted to the world that we are about more than just glitz, glitter, girls, and a fine basketball team."

(For the record, the photo was Unger's idea.)