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Lisa Graley |
Originally from West Virginia, Lisa earned her
BA in journalism at Marshall
University in 1988 and then worked four years as a staff writer and editor for
a weekly newspaper in Hamlin, WV. She moved to Louisiana in 1992 to study
creative writing with Robert Olen Butler at McNeese State University, receiving
her MFA in 1995. Afterwards, she attended the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette as a Graduate Fellow and was awarded her PhD in English with an
emphasis in creative writing in 1998. Since then, she has designed and taught
classes in English and Humanities at UL Lafayette while continuing to write
fiction, and making important contributions to the developing concentration in
Women’s Studies. In 2000, she was awarded a Division of the Arts Artist
Fellowship from the Louisiana Endowment for the Arts for her creative work. Her
story, “Crossing with Sassafras,” is scheduled to appear in Glimmer Train
in May 2003. When we asked her to reflect on her time at this university, she
responded with the following note:
There is a
sense of community in Lafayette and at UL Lafayette in particular, and faculty
members and students—not just creative writers—are genuinely interested in and
supportive of one’s work here. Because of this respect for the artistic
process, there is a place for writers who seek continual feedback and interaction
with professors and other students, and—more importantly for me—there is also a
place for writers who need quiet, reflective time and solitude in order to
create.
The
program’s emphasis on producing “generalists” among PhD students is one of the
best things to befall me and my writing, forcing me to study works in which I
formerly had no interest. The courses I took, the stimulating conversations
I’ve had with professors, and the ideas of other students fed me—and feed me
still. Teaching the American Literature survey courses as a PhD fellow gave me
contexts for the literature I had always loved and for the work I was producing
at the time. On top of this, Lafayette has a healthy Cajun Road Runners Club,
and I’ve enjoyed racing in lots of 5Ks.
Check out Lisa’s
Curriculum Vitae
Go to UL
Lafayette Creative Writing Anthology
© 2001, University of
Louisiana at Lafayette.
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: May 1, 2001.