José De Piérola, PhD
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Creative Writing
College of Liberal Arts
UT El Paso
No matter how difficult the day might be, I know that when I teach, the classroom is the space in which everything else fades away, teaching then feeds the imagination, inspires, helps me to find that small gap between what we know and what we need to learn, a discovery that is always good for my students as well as for me.
Teaching creative writing is teaching a resilient creative practice that begins one day but lasts a lifetime. Such teaching makes students aware of the stewardship entrusted to their vocations. It should prepare aspiring writers to continue writing after they earn their degrees, after their material conditions have changed, after their own vision of the human experience has changed, and, in some cases, continue writing in the face of adversity.
