Blake’s teaching career has been spent primarily at the college level in the University of Nevada English Department where he taught for 9 years. In that time, he completed an MA in Writing and Ph.D in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Nevada before becoming a member of the faculty. He won the Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowship to write his dissertation “Making Space: Vision and Visualization in Landscape Architecture” studying writing and persuasion in the design of public space. He believes in the importance of dissenting voices in strengthening argument and loves talking over a piece of writing on a shared screen. Blake lives with his wife and 2 daughters in Reno, NV, playing tennis when he can.