Photo: Reading Hamlet at Kronborg Castle (a.k.a. Elsinore) in Helsingør, Denmark.
TEACHING POSTS
George Mason University, Department of English
ENGH 495: Senior BFA Capstone and Portfolio
ENGH 607: History and Theory of Publishing Practice and Technology (forthcoming as part of new Certificate in Publishing Practice)
University of Baltimore, School of Communications Design
Special courses developed:
The Great Zombie: The Intersection of Popular Literature and Pop Culture
iBook, eBook, uBook: How Technology Has Changed Writing, Publishing, and Reading
Loyola University, Communication Department
Special courses developed:
Book Publishing: From Idea to Writer, From Manuscript to Bound Book
Book Production: History, Typography, Design, and Formats
Book Marketing: 21st-Century Strategies for 15th-Century Artifacts
Various Universities, Continuing Studies Divisions
Creative writing, book publishing, and marketing courses within adult education divisions at Johns Hopkins University, Community College of Baltimore County, and Anne Arundel Community College
Special courses developed:
Publishing Matrix and Self Wars: Options Beyond Legacy Publishers
Actual Towns and Fake Burgs: Crafting a Real Sense of Place in Fiction Writing
Literature studies on the work of Elizabeth Strout and George Saunders
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
I would emphasize the key points of my teaching philosophy as a dynamic learner-centric approach, but within parameters to maintain basic course structure, heavy on experiential learning including the use of technology, rife with collaboration in its many forms, and an underlying current of flexibility or a willingness to (at times) divert from the syllabus down an uncharted path in order to arrive at the goals of art and education.
My teaching philosophy allows me to be taught. I have some pretty tightly held opinions about what is “right” about publishing or “good” about literature, but I am no sage-on-the-stage. At this point, my engagement with literature is informed more from a life-long passion for reading, career-long exposure to publishing, and side-line forays into freelance writing than it is from formal study of fiction and poetry. Recently, however, the muscles of theory and analysis have been bulked up by critical exercises and toned in academic gymnasiums. I think this sort of development helps create an “amateur” approach to literature, in Stephanie Foote’s sense of the word, meaning a more “pedestrian pedagogy” that seeks to escape the distancing effect of mastery over a text from more ordinary reading practices, which in turn maintains a certain openness to the text upon returning to it again and again (“Amateur Hour: Beginning in the Lecture Hall.” Pedagogy, Volume 10, Number3 (2010), 457-470).
WORKSHOP STATEMENT
{Developed in collaboration with George Mason University MFA Program faculty, administration, and students.}
The workshop is a critical component of any Creative Writing Program, at both the undergraduate (Bachelors of Fine Arts) and graduate (Masters of Fine Arts) levels. Just as students in visual arts programs receive studio critiques from peers and professors, and students in the performing arts engage in practicums, rehearsals, and exams, creative writing students submit their work for feedback from other students and teachers. It is a space in which a writer may further refine an artistic vision, experiment with new approaches to material, and hone their own literary sensibilities through constructive criticism to and from peers. The Workshop also entails a fair amount of risk for both writer and commentator and is, therefore, a space of mutual vulnerability.
The Workshop format is not perfect, and like all established systems there have long been problematic structural elements, especially as regards writers from historically marginalized groups. Currently, it is undergoing a necessary transformation as students and professors think about ways to make the space more sensitive to ideas of privilege, racism, misogyny, homophobia, American exceptionalism, and other issues of bias. Everyone should think deeply about questions of agency and inclusivity.
No two Workshop professors will lead the class in the same way and much depends on the genre being studied. Faculty ask students to be patient with different pedagogical approaches. Some professors employ a traditional workshop model, asking the writer to remain silent for the duration of the Workshop discussion. Some ask for a cover letter so that a writer may outline intentions with a piece. Others allow for comments on the final page of submitted work, or at the end of a Workshop session. They are sensitive to ways in which the Workshop might perpetuate the element of feeling silenced (which is different from a writer actively choosing silence), and they hope that you will talk to your professors or program director if you feel that this has happened. At the same time, faculty ask that you understand the importance of perspective in considering your own work, and the ways in which it is useful to hear how readers react to what you have created on the page.
Precisely because the Workshop is a space of vulnerability, it should also be a generous space. Personal information will be shared; character sketches, plots, and other content may well spring from personal experiences; political perspectives may differ; religious beliefs will vary; educational pedigrees will be across the board. Faculty urge you to direct comments at the writing submitted, and not at the writer. Our community expects both faculty and students to be mindful when a writer’s identity enters the conversation. We want all student writers to have the agency to decide if they want to continue a conversation that speaks to their identity or to ask that the conversation be redirected in a more appropriate or comfortable direction. If a faculty member or peer notices a conversation that seems to attack, criticize, demean, or unsettle a writer, they should feel empowered to either speak to the issue and/or ask the writer being workshopped if they’d like to move on.
As with all studio-based arts programs, ongoing creative and critical conversations are an important part of artistic growth. While students are encouraged to keep conversations alive with peers and faculty, ours is a small community and we urge tact. The rise of social media and the existence of online literary communities have become part of our creative world but we would ask that you do not use these as platforms to air specific grievances. Please respect the Workshop space, and each other.
Most of all, we hope that you can find in your Workshops opportunities to explore, create, and grow as a writer. The work you present in them are the closest approximation to your creative life after your degree; the Workshop is empty space waiting to be filled by you, the writer.
RESOURCES
Felica Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop
David Mura’s The Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Writing
Matthew Salesses’s Craft in the real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping,