Professor
Director of Undergraduate
Studies
Some say
you can't teach writing, but I believe you can give students the
tools and opportunities to become better writers. My courses
in writing fiction are grounded in that belief. I respond
to student writing the same way I respond to my own, with a combination
of approaches. The organic approach is based on the idea
that our work grows out of us without our being quite aware of
what we're doing, and we need to prune judiciously (and semi-ruthlessly)
if we're to give this wild thing its proper shape. The
other approach, what I like to call the Lego-Block approach, assumes
that the exposition and scenes we write are building blocks which
can be moved about (even discarded and replaced) as the story
requires. We build and shape, shape and build. I
believe in close attention to text, and that the true work of
writing is in revision. I'm as likely, though, to pose
questions as make suggestions; it's important to step away from
the work from time to time and see it in a larger context--an
exercise in where are you going, where have you been?
I'm especially
interested in voice, and in trying to extend the range of one's
own narrative technique as a means of getting the story told best.
This can be seen, certainly, in the range of voices found
in my published work. I've inhabited the voice of everything
from a 56-year-old female town clerk in Matty's Heart
(New Rivers Press, 1984) to that a 27-year-old woman looking back
at her 17-year-old runaway self in American Beauty (Simon
and Schuster, 1987). In The Clouds in Memphis (University
of Massachusetts Press, 2000), I've told stories from the perspective
of a mother coping with the loss of one of her children by a hit
and run driver, from the perspective of a real estate developer
trying to smooth over everyone's feelings after a drowning in
one of his subdivisions, and from the perspective of a young woman
trying to find out the real story behind her sister's death in
an industrial accident. Most recently, I've explored the
voice of a son trying to understand his parents' marriage and
the mysteries of his own in the forthcoming The Company Car
(Random House, 2005).
In addition,
I have an interest in modern and contemporary fiction, in the
novella and the short-story as forms, and in the literature of
Central Europe (perhaps best evidenced by the anthology I edited,
The Boundaries of Twilight: Czecho-Slovak Writing from the
New World (New Rivers Press, 1991)).
Teaching Fields
- The Novella
- Creative Writing — Fiction
- Modern and Contemporary Fiction
Office
Location & Contact
Office
Hours
- SPRING 2008
- PLEASE CALL THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OFFICE TO SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT (414) 288-7179.
Teaching
Schedule
- SPRING 2008
- 191/1001 MW 2:25-3:40
Research Interests
Selected Publications
- Matty's Heart. New Rivers Press, 1984.
- American Beauty. Simon & Schuster, 1987.
- Boundaries of Twilight : Czecho-Slovak Writing from the New World. New Rivers Press, 1991. (Editor).
- The Clouds in Memphis: Stories and Novellas. University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.
- The Company Car. Random House, 2006.
Honors/Awards
• Associated Writing Programs Award in Short Fiction, 1999 (for The
Clouds in Memphis)
• Guggenheim Fellowship
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
• Bush Foundation Fellowship
• Loft-Mentor Fellowship
