Fred D’Aguiar
Professor
415
231-7759
fredd@vt.edu
The first thing you do as a black poet is unzip the suit of your black
skin and walk away from it. The second thing you do as a poet is find that
suit of yours that fits you oh so well and step right back into it. That
suit paints behind your eyelids so you see it when you dream. That suit
is osmotic: it lets out sweat, breathes for you – your biggest organ – and keeps out the
elements. All history is in that skin. Poetry plays your skin like an instrument – listen,
touch, taste, look, and sniff. Dream-skin. Skin-song. Human.
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Ed Falco
Professor, Director of Creative Writing and the MFA Program
411
231-7743
ed.falco@vt.edu
As a author and a teacher, I’m interested in both print and digital
writing. While most of the stories I’ve published over the years
in journals and books are traditional in structure, I’ve also regularly
published literary and experimental “short fictions” in various
small magazines, and I have recently published a collection of that work,
entitled In the Park
of Culture, with the University of Notre Dame Press. My interest
in digital writing (which is also referred to as “new media writing,” or “hypertext”)
dates back to the earliest days of personal computers, and I have a novel
and a poetry collection available on disk from Eastgate Systems, as well
as various works available online. Sabbath Night in the Church of
the Piranha, a
book of new and selected short stories, was also published recently. WolfPoint, a
novel, was published in October of ’05.
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Nikki Giovanni 
University Distinguished Professor
Gloria D. Smith Professor of Black Studies
212
231-9453
The recognition of Middle Passage as our porthole to prolonged space travel is
a unique way to understand both slavery and space which I explore in Quilting
the Black Eyed Pea.These two apparent opposites, our shameful past and the
possibility of water and atmosphere on a distant star, must combine to make not
just poetry but a better theory of life. My primary interest is the evolution
of Black America and the impact of that evolving upon Earth. Rhythm and Blues
was born from a fusion of gospel and jazz. Fusions continue in many other aspects
of the Black experience whether it is food, clothing, painting, movies or any
other art. We even Rock the Vote these days. Charles Darwin went in search of
The Origins of the Species. Much of his work has been used against him and the
rest of us. I am in search of Darwin by land and sea to put together my theory
of luck and happenstance. If luck and happenstance are factors, then responsibility
has to change. My primary interest is in learning something new.
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Bob Hicok
Associate Professor
243
231-4479
hicok@vt.edu
I write poems and stories. I have little faith or interest in my thoughts
on writing. Those who do a thing are often too close to be perceptive commentators,
particularly where love is involved. I love writing, maybe most of all
because it doesn’t matter, because poems don’t lift bridges or make refrigerators
shinier. The nakedness of the endeavor—just one person, sitting at a desk,
trying to express something they feel in a way that will allow others into their
mind—may be among the most human things we do. We are the mouths
of the world, and through poetry we speak.
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Jeff Mann
Associate Professor
210
231-7706
jemann2@vt.edu
My creative work ranges among several genres. In poetry, I often focus on the
complexities of love relationships or the countryside and culture of Southern
Appalachia, though lately I have also been examining the mythologies of Northern
Europe. My creative nonfiction deals with the gay/lesbian experience, especially
in Appalachia, as well as the vagaries of aging, the legacies of family, the
many facets of eroticism, and travel in both Europe and North America. My fiction
portrays the darker depths and intensities of gay male relationships. Much of
my creative writing is informed by my eager interests in Southern literature,
gay/lesbian literature, Appalachian folk culture, and Appalachian literature.
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Erika Meitner
Assistant Professor
410
231-7728
Meitner@vt.edu
As a poet and teacher of creative writing,
I am generally obsessed with unhinging and investigating the connections
between emotion, language, and story. I am more specifically
interested in different ways of constructing narratives — straight-up,
fractured, beat-boxed, lyric, winding, and metaphorically luminous
testimony-poems. Though it is deeply un-sexy, I preach the gospel
of syntactical energy. My work tends to deal with women’s
bodies and female sexuality, the perils and pleasures of adolescence,
urban peripheries and interstitial spaces. My writing is often
informed by my interests in very contemporary American poetry of all
schools and un-schools, poetry and performance, and ethnic American
fiction. In addition to being a poet, I moonlight as an academic. I’m
currently pursuing a doctorate in Religion and Culture, focusing on
Jewish Studies, at the University of Virginia. My research interests
include Jewish and Muslim women’s literature, the Jewish-American
novel, material religion, and new ritual.
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Lucinda Roy
Professor of English and Alumni Distinguished Professor
413
231-6146
lroy@vt.edu
I am a novelist and poet, so my primary focus is creative writing. I enjoy
working with writers on their novels, short stories, and poetry collections,
and I work best with those who are profoundly curious about themselves,
about their assumptions, and about the world around them. I am fascinated
by prosody and technique, and I believe that it is necessary for writers
to appreciate the power of language, the complexity of form, and the demands
of perspective before they can write anything meaningful. I am preoccupied
with the process that is involved when one transforms experience into artistic
expression, and I try to experiment with different genres to see how one’s
subject matter is altered by the limitations and potential inherent in
a particular form.
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