September 4, 2018
Joining the faculty as visiting Endowed Professor is a honor and a joy – in large part because Old Dominion is a university and Creative Writing Program/English Department I deeply respect for its commitment to dynamic student diversity, the engagement of active military students, and a welcoming of innovative writing and hybrid forms. As a writer who inhabits poetry, fiction, and hybrid form nonfiction, teaching two nonfiction special courses on intersectionality and memoir is an opportunity to run free and fast.
Although my life has included New York, Eastern Europe, South America, and the American Southwest, half my roots are profoundly Southern, and much of my mixed-race southern family lived in Norfolk. Being here means picking up the strands of DNA that were long apocryphal – this is truly one of the most fascinating cities and communities in the world. And I’m happy for the opportunity to embark upon my own new book here, as well as help shepherd student work into the cosmos.
I even have relatives in my classes to my great astonishment – shouldn’t be surprised – so there’s the loop of heritage and legacy left uncompleted. Many hidden stories here, many obscured lives, and from the underground railroad to slave revolts, sexual entrepreneurialship, complex queernesses, desegregation activism, defense department, NATO and Naval activity, and a long history from the beginnings of 6500 BCE through to european colonialism – nothing here is superficial.
I’m seriously all butterfly-elated. The Old Dominion University Creative Writing Program and English Department is the kind of program I would create if I had a magic wand. As many of you know I have a very lively visiting artist/endowed visiting professor practice, so I’ve been honored to work in a great many exceptional MFA programs, and they all have their strengths. But ODU is warm, adventurous, dynamic, and a perfect place for those of us who work between genres and across disciplines. The students I’ve met so far have launched into discussion of ideas that I have long wished to embark upon – classes should be wonderful for my own creative practice. Gratitude to John McManus and Sheri Reynolds for recruiting me for this dream come true.
To all my lovelies who don’t fit into the boxes of normals, please do check out this program for the MFA you know you want.