Megan Paonessa糖心传媒Marquette Hall, 241
MilwaukeeWI53201United States of America(414) 288-3996megan.paonessa@marquette.eduI teach creative writing because I love witnessing the moment when a student falls in love with the power of language. To trick them down the English rabbit hole, I force them into reading contemporary, new voices who are experimenting with form and subject matter, hoping by pushing them outside their comfort zones I can introduce students to new ways of looking at story. My favorite stories to teach cross genres or use fabulist, surreal, or oddly ordinary lives to connect to personal truths. In mimicking what we read, I encourage students to push the boundaries of a typical story arc and find what interests them about language 鈥� a description full of weighted images and implications, Woody Allen-type dialogue, full of wit, unexpected or unreliable endings, suspense that builds and intensifies before a fantastic payoff. These outsider fictions help students let down their walls and locate the stories hiding inside them. Oftentimes, they fail. But we learn best when we learn from our failures.
My fiction also uses fabulist elements. I like to explore ways in which our mental health and imagination affect our physical and natural world, asking readers to question the way we judge one another and the history we鈥檝e created. My recent work earned Honorable Mention in the 2020 NYC Midnight Short Story Contest and has appeared in The Adirondack Review, PANK, fwriction : review, Camera Obscura, and my chapbook 鈥淭he Great Reimaging of Greenletter Avenue鈥� is forthcoming. In addition to fiction, I鈥檓 a big fan of the personal narrative. My creative nonfiction has won the Hayden鈥檚 Ferry Review 25th Anniversary Award, has been published in Scary Mommy, and is forthcoming in The Journal for Research and Practice in College Teaching, Special Edition. I earned my MFA from the University of Alabama, and a double BA in English and Fine Art from the University of Notre Dame.
Textbook:
, co-written with editor Robin Behn, University of Alabama Press, 2020
Fiction:
鈥�,鈥� Inter et Inter, May 2023
鈥� winner of the TL;DR Press Flash Fiction Contest, June 2022
Identity Theory, November 2021
鈥淭he Great Reimagining of Greenletter Avenue,鈥� winner of chapbook contest, forthcoming
鈥�,鈥� ARZONO Press 2021 Annual Anthology, June 2021
鈥�Cloudspire,鈥� finalist in Reedsy鈥檚 post-apocalyptic climate change contest, April 2021
鈥�,鈥� Adirondack Review, Winter 2020
鈥�,鈥� Flying House, October 2013
鈥淐atch & Release,鈥� Picayune Literary Magazine, May 2013
鈥淎lcohol Memory,鈥� Liver of Dixie 鈥� Stories from Egan鈥檚, May 2013
鈥�,鈥� fwriction : review, April 2013
鈥淧ARKING $20鈥撯�揈Z OUT,鈥� Specter Literary Magazine, September 2012
鈥淭wo Years in Tuscaloosa,鈥� Tuscaloosa Runs This, May 2011 eBook, on , and
February 2012, Broken Futon Press
鈥淧aper Cutouts,鈥� Red Lightbulbs, May 2011
鈥淰补肠补苍肠颈别蝉,鈥� Camera Obscura, April 2011
鈥淥verexposed, Mending into White,鈥� 5923 Quarterly, March 2011
鈥�,鈥� Flying House, Winter 2010
Creative Nonfiction:
颁濒补蝉蝉谤辞辞尘,鈥� Journal for Research and Practice in College Teaching, forthcoming
, Scary Mommy, May 2016
, Scary Mommy, March 2016
鈥�,鈥� Hayden鈥檚 Ferry Review 25th Anniversary Award Winner, May
2012
Office Hours
Fall 2024
Teaching Schedule
Spring 2024
