Jim Hagengruber earned his MFA in nonfiction in 2007 and is currently a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. While studying for his MFA, Jim was an environmental reporter for The Spokesman-Review and previously worked at newspapers in Montana and Wisconsin, as well as a journalism fellow for The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Munich. After being laid off from The Spokesman-Review during widespread staff cuts, he traveled around the world, making several trips to Iraq for freelance projects. Before joining the State Department in 2009, Jim was Europe editor for The Christian Science Monitor. Jim’s diplomatic postings have included assistant cultural attache in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; vice consul in Hyderabad, India; public affairs officer in Praia, Cabo Verde; and press attache/spokesman in Belgrade, Serbia. He is spending the current academic year completing a master’s degree in national security studies at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Jim earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.