Todd A. Comer
Writer · Scholar · Teacher
Todd is a writer, at home and at work. He holds a Ph.D. in American literature and film, and is best understood as a teacher and interdisciplinary scholar of cultural studies, with a particular focus on Appalachia, disability, and the complexity of the American experience.
In the recent past, Todd served as Director of Digital Humanities at Wilberforce University. Much of his early career was spent at Defiance College, where he was Director of Composition. He has taught and published across the digital humanities, art, music, television, film, experimental fiction, comics, and radical politics.
Current Work
Todd has completed two as-of-yet unpublished poetry collections currently in circulation: A Weekend Rot and Other Poems and Mary and Etta: Appalachian Poems. He read from Mary and Etta at the Appalachian Literary Arts & Storytelling Festival in 2024.
His essay “Finding Myself Elsewhere: My Impaired, Appalachian Self” will be published in 2027 in Appalachian Disability Anthology, edited by Kendra Winchester (University Press of Kentucky).
Recent Publications
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Forthcoming
“The Silence of Rockford Chapel”
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2025–26
“While At Eyecare Associates, My Dead Mother Walks In”
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2025–26
“A Late Night Frittata on Lancaster Street”
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2027
“Finding Myself Elsewhere: My Impaired, Appalachian Self”
Appalachian Disability Anthology, ed. Kendra Winchester · University Press of Kentucky
Scholarship & Talks
In 2023, Todd presented “The Juggler and the Pugilist: Two Marietta Icons Consider Life in the Pandemic” at the NCTE Annual Conference in Columbus, OH. In 2022, he presented a paper on disability and ecocriticism in Wall-E at the Midwest Popular Culture Association’s annual conference in Chicago.
In 2020, Todd co-edited, with Dr. Christine Junker, a double thematic issue of Studies in the Humanities focused on the intersection of disability studies and ecocriticism.
In the Studio
Art by Aaron Kramer. Photo by TC.
Contact
Dear Professor Comer,
My name is Elisha Frontz, and I currently have artwork hanging at Emporium Wines and Underdog Café in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I am writing to thank you very sincerely. This weekend I was contacted by Eyal Amiran of Los Angeles, California. He purchased one of my paintings and mentioned that you were the person who had sent him my way. I deeply appreciate that you shared my work.
Best regards,
Elisha Frontz