My first novel, Full Fadom Five, was a finalist for the 2023 Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize. Other work has appeared, or been shortlisted for awards, in several Canadian literary magazines. I also have 20 years’ experience teaching at John Abbott College, including a dozen years of teaching dramatic literature to Theatre students and workshopping student-written plays, from page to stage.
While I’m an adept lecturer, I prefer to interact with students more informally. My teaching style is approachable, conversational, and encouraging. When workshopping creative writing, I aim to help students better articulate their artistic goals for a given work and then seek out artistic “opportunities”—places where greater attentiveness (to subject, language, structure, etc.) might yield a richer realization of those goals.
As an invited guest, I’m happy to give readings, participate in Q&A sessions, lecture on aspects of the writing process, or discuss and workshop student writing. However, I also have many years of experience in team-teaching environments; I’m skilled at collaboration in the classroom and happy to adapt to suit the needs of the teachers I work with. And, while I’m primarily a writer of fiction and drama, I’m also a published poet with a strong grounding in poetry, including the technical aspects of prosody. I write poetry infrequently, but I love talking about it.
Website: davidccbourgeois.com