MFA in Creative Writing - Paul Lisicky

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Teaching Philosophy

I came to prose writing through music. As such, I tend to think about our project in metaphoric terms. What might the maker of sentences learn from a singer's phrasing? What can we learn about structure from a great painting, or from looking at a garden? My own teaching emphasizes the development of individual voice and vision. That's easier said than done, of course, but one way to go about doing that involves exposing you to a wide range of nonfiction forms, from the full-length memoir to the lyric essay. Reading - or appreciation - is central to our work. Once we begin to articulate why someone's story is alive and necessary, we're better able to bring the quirks of our own thinking and physicality to bear upon the page.