Teresa Carmody
- Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Mentor
- MFA in Writing
Additional Information
Biography
Teresa Carmody’s writing includes fiction, creative nonfiction, inter-arts collaborations, and hybrid forms. She is the author of The Reconception of Marie (2020), Maison Femme: a fiction (2015), Requiem (2005), and A Healthy Interest in the Lives of Others, a collection of autofictions forthcoming in 2024. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Water-Stone Review, Autofocus Lit, Burrow Review, LitHub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Matters of Feminist Practice, The Collagist, WHR, and many more.
Carmody is co-founding editor of Les Figues Press, now an imprint of punctum books. She is the co-editor of I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women, and trenchart monographs: hurry up please its time. At Les Figues, Carmody worked with writers and artists on a wide range of projects, from developmental editing and manuscript design, to community collaborations and site-specific installations. More recently, she has collaborated with textile artist Madison Creech on DeLand, a viewmaster book, and they are currently working on a children’s book.
She has taught fiction, creative nonfiction, and literature at California Institute of the Arts, UC San Diego, Stetson University (where she also directed the low-residency MFA of the Americas program), and is now at University of Nebraska Omaha. She holds a PhD in English/Fiction from University of Denver and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Antioch University.
Teaching Philosophy
"In teaching creative writing, I emphasize an expanded notion of reading (text, self, world) as a writing strategy, along with a focus on craft, experimentation, and an exploration of the political, social, aesthetic, and historical constellations that form us and our work. I’ve worked with writers on a variety of manuscripts and projects, from literary fiction, memoirs, poetry, and essay collections, to speculative novels, image-text hybrids, translations, and performance-based texts. I think about the word text rooting through the Latin textus, “thing woven,” and how – in community – writers help each other to more fully perceive the many threads of a work-in-progress, and then to develop and weave those threads toward a work’s most honest articulation. I’ll take play over perfect every time, but play with a purpose, with a wild trust in your intuitive logics. So, tell me about your world. What material makes it?
"As a mentor, I meet students where they are at, even as I encourage them to take risks, to ask unanswerable questions. Who are you in conversation with? What is at stake in your writing? It’s okay to not have answers, but how can we ask better questions? My training and creative practice is interdisciplinary in its scope, so I may have some unconventional suggestions for your reading list. Think: critical theory, dream journals, divinatory poetics, visual art and art writing, performance art, and all manner of auto-bio-fictional writing. Ultimately, however, it’s your learning, your growth, your writing… and what a joy to be here!"
Additional Information
Biography
Teresa Carmody’s writing includes fiction, creative nonfiction, inter-arts collaborations, and hybrid forms. She is the author of The Reconception of Marie (2020), Maison Femme: a fiction (2015), Requiem (2005), and A Healthy Interest in the Lives of Others, a collection of autofictions forthcoming in 2024. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Water-Stone Review, Autofocus Lit, Burrow Review, LitHub, Michigan Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Matters of Feminist Practice, The Collagist, WHR, and many more.
Carmody is co-founding editor of Les Figues Press, now an imprint of punctum books. She is the co-editor of I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women, and trenchart monographs: hurry up please its time. At Les Figues, Carmody worked with writers and artists on a wide range of projects, from developmental editing and manuscript design, to community collaborations and site-specific installations. More recently, she has collaborated with textile artist Madison Creech on DeLand, a viewmaster book, and they are currently working on a children’s book.
She has taught fiction, creative nonfiction, and literature at California Institute of the Arts, UC San Diego, Stetson University (where she also directed the low-residency MFA of the Americas program), and is now at University of Nebraska Omaha. She holds a PhD in English/Fiction from University of Denver and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Antioch University.
Teaching Philosophy
"In teaching creative writing, I emphasize an expanded notion of reading (text, self, world) as a writing strategy, along with a focus on craft, experimentation, and an exploration of the political, social, aesthetic, and historical constellations that form us and our work. I’ve worked with writers on a variety of manuscripts and projects, from literary fiction, memoirs, poetry, and essay collections, to speculative novels, image-text hybrids, translations, and performance-based texts. I think about the word text rooting through the Latin textus, “thing woven,” and how – in community – writers help each other to more fully perceive the many threads of a work-in-progress, and then to develop and weave those threads toward a work’s most honest articulation. I’ll take play over perfect every time, but play with a purpose, with a wild trust in your intuitive logics. So, tell me about your world. What material makes it?
"As a mentor, I meet students where they are at, even as I encourage them to take risks, to ask unanswerable questions. Who are you in conversation with? What is at stake in your writing? It’s okay to not have answers, but how can we ask better questions? My training and creative practice is interdisciplinary in its scope, so I may have some unconventional suggestions for your reading list. Think: critical theory, dream journals, divinatory poetics, visual art and art writing, performance art, and all manner of auto-bio-fictional writing. Ultimately, however, it’s your learning, your growth, your writing… and what a joy to be here!"