Outreach, writing, and workshops!

Greetings, lovely people! Finding time to write can be challenging when your job and personal/home life keeps you busy, but we writers find a way!

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with a high school English class about contemporary Native Americans, which is related to my specialty of Indigenous Rhetorics. Showing these students such indigenous meaning makers as stand-up comics, fashion designers, and musicians was absolutely delightful.

Another aspect of my faculty position is a requirement to write for publication. For promotions, we are required to write academic essays that appear in scholarly journals that are often only accessible if you have access to the paywall, usually through a university library. Although I enjoy writing in this genre, I enjoy my public writing even more because I have the opportunity to investigate more subjects that are important to me and because public writing has a much bigger audience. One of the reasons I am a writer is because I enjoy having others read my writing, so the bigger the audience, the better! My latest post on Feministing discusses the importance of women embracing our ages to fight the national narrative that women aren’t allowed to age.

Finally, one of my greatest joys is teaching. My students consistently bring equal measures of joy and fear, and excitement and trepidation to their writing practice, which in turn enlivens and informs my teaching practice. Every student teaches me something and I strive to bring this accumulation of knowledge to all of my classrooms and workshops. If you would like the opportunity to work with me, I will be teaching the Creative Nonfiction workshop at the Murphy Writing of Stockton University’s Poetry and Prose Getaway this January 2016 in New Jersey. It is a wonderfully supportive and productive weekend and I hope to meet you there!