Denise
Rogers
BIOGRAPHY
Denise Rogers is Director of Freshman English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She received her undergraduate degree in Child Study from Webster College in Webster Groves (St. Louis County), Missouri. Until leaving for graduate school, she lived and worked in St. Louis, Missouri as a kindergarten teacher, then a library assistant, and last a legal secretary. She received the M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1996, where she also participated in the Arkansas Writers in the Schools Project. In general, her work explores the theme of separation and memory. Much of her work is inspired by oriental woodblock prints, scrolls, gardens, and films, as well as western paintings and sculpture. But some of her work is based on her memory of family, particularly of her vacations and holidays with her grandparents in the French communities of southern Missouri. Some of the publications her work has appeared in are. She has also published scholarly articles on the Sherlock Holmes canon in The Canadian Holmes, Plum in the Pudding, The Serpentine Muse, and The Baker Street Miscellaney.
BRIEF CURRICULUM VITAE
Courses Taught
Introduction to
World Literature; Developmental Composition; Composition & Rhetoric
101; Composition & Literature 102 (Introduction to Literature); Intermediate
Composition; Essay Writing; American Literature I; British Literature II;
Introduction to Creative Writing; Creative Writing I; Humanities 152 (Renaissance
to the Twentieth Century); Shakespeare 312 (Shakespeare for Non-Majors); Dreaming
of Japan (Japanese History and Culture from Medieval Times to the Present
Day).
Select Publications
Book:
The
Scholar's Daughter. (Louisiana
Literature Press, forthcoming 2006)
Borderlands: The Texas Poetry Review, Louisiana English Journal, Ekphrasis, and The Alaska Quarterly Review
Other Publications
and Presentations
“Ms. Rogers,
What’s Those Things on Their Heads?: Using the Humanities in the Developmental
English Classroom.” Paper delivered March 22, 1997 at the Bi-Annual
Meeting of the National Association of Humanities Educators, held in Provo,
Utah.
“Crypts, Secret Rooms, and Subterranean Passageways: Entombment as a Motif in the [Sherlockian] Canon.” The Baker Street Miscellanea 61 (1990): 19-23.
“A Treasure in the Thames?” The Serpentine Muse: A Quarterly Publication of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 8.4 (1990): 11-14.
“The Ghost Dog and Other Aspects of Animal Folklore.” The Canadian Holmes (1989): 12-16.
“Conan Doyle, Animal Folklore, and The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Paper delivered January 4, 1989 to the Annual Meeting of the Noble Bachelors of St. Louis.
“Vanity, Thy Name is Publication.” The Plum in the Pudding 3 (1988): 13-17.
"Censorship, A Bibliography of Articles and Books." Washington University Bibliography Series No. 4. (1982).
ON TEACHING AND/OR WRITING
Sincerity and honesty, it seems to me, are the most important aspects of teaching and writing. Anything else seems unfair to both students and the writers. What I have most appreciated in terms of my own development is the encouragement to become more than what I am. This filters over into my teaching, certainly. More often than not, I am teaching to the people my students will become. This does not mean that I ignore the people they are now, but all good teachers have to have that view towards tomorrow. Excitement about the subject, coupled with excitement about student achievement, makes for inspired teaching. When I was a young writer (in fact I was in 5th grade), I had a teacher who seemed to know the direction I was headed in. For years after I left his class, he stopped by my house on my birthday to give me books of poetry, English usage, grammar, and vocabulary building. At the time I thought they were less than terrific presents. But now that I look back, I see that he gave me books that spoke to the person I would become. Having gone to an inner-city school, I had a harder time than some in finding my way into the world of poetry. But my experience has given me a great deal of sympathy for the struggles of my students, especially those in my remedial classes. It’s very exciting for me to look at these students’ work at the end of the semester, to think about their struggles over the semester, and to discover how much they have grown. But it is even more exciting to me to see that student further along in his or her career. It is my hope that they always find ways to truly celebrate and recognize their achievements. They have certainly taught me to recognize and celebrate my own.
Read a Sample of Denise Rogers’s Poetry
Go to ULLafayette Creative Writing Anthology
This site designed and maintained by The Creative Writing Concentration
of the English Department of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
To contact us by mail: Director of Creative Writing, English Department,
Box 44691, UL-Lafayette, Lafayette LA 70504-4691; by telephone, 337-482-5478;
by email, jlm8047@louisiana.edu.
Last updated: November 3, 2005.