• professor of English
• teaches creative writing, creative non-fiction, and screenwriting
• created Miami's low-residency MFA Creative Writing program
• enjoys spending time at his farm in upstate New York

Background

"My English undergraduate degree is from Yale and I have a Master's in English/Creative Writing from Stanford.

"I loved novels growing up. I started out as a chemistry major at Yale and even got through pre-med—but then I decided that I loved English and writing too much and kept with it.

"I had a career as a working writer and published my first two novels before coming to Miami. I worked in episodic television as well and I also wrote and continue to write for many New York 'glossy' magazines."

Teaching

"I teach a full scope of undergraduate and graduate creative writing courses. I was the Director of the Creative Writing program for over 15 years and helped design a few of those courses. For example, I created the Creative Non-Fiction Workshop and the Screenwriting Workshop.

"I love interacting with students, and I enjoy the performance aspect of teaching. While teaching creative writing, one is dealing with students who have decided to do this on their own, not because they were told to do so. For the most part, students are eager and I enjoy that.

"Because I teach mostly hands-on workshops, we operate on a first name basis and we are, as a workshop, both supportive and completely honest with one another, and that is important to me as a professor. At the graduate level I also do a lot of long-term mentoring, which often involves students who have been working on projects since they were undergrads."

Research

"My research related to my field tends to take the shape of individual research for the books I am working on. I have had five novels published thus far while I travel to complete another novel.

I started the Miami Winter Writer's Conference during J-Term, which explores the teaching of writing in an intensive format in which students commit to writing everyday. I'm looking into how to apply the best aspects of that experience to the semester courses that I teach.

"Having taught for a number of summers at the Iowa Summer Writers Festival, I've seen firsthand how many adults with careers are eager in becoming more engaged with writing. This has helped motivate me to creating the new low-residency MFA Creative Writing program here at Miami."

[Read the September 2014 CAS press release Miami's new low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program gears up to mentor new writers.]

Outside the Classroom

"I'm a baseball fan, and baseball is the central focus of one of my novels, In Days of Awe. I'm waiting for the New York Mets to win the World Series again!

"My wife and I have a farm in upstate New York, in wine country, and I enjoy gardening there. We also spend a lot of time in Thailand, where we are hoping to help Miami establish some institutional relationships with Thai universities."

[July 2014]