On July 17, 2024, Teachers & Writers Magazine hosted a conversation about innovation in the creative writing classroom with 2024 Bechtel Prize winner Abriana Jetté, runner-up Éireann Lorsung, and honorable mention Reagan Ross. The panelists shared about their essays and discussed the trial, error, and inspiration for their innovative methods of teaching creative writing. Teachers & Writers Magazine awards the Bechtel Prize annually for an essay describing a teaching experience, project, or activity that demonstrates innovation in creative writing instruction. Learn more about the Bechtel Prize here.
I think all our forms are forms for invention, and that includes the classroom.
—Éireann Lorsung
Read the essays discussed in this panel:
“Flexing Our Rhyming Muscles: Introducing the Ghazal” by Abriana Jetté
“The Slowest Writing in the World: We Use a Needle and Thread to Learn to Write” by Éireann Lorsung
“Write Your Own Lord of the Flies with Dyslexia: \/尺⌽┻𝝣 7≠レ尺 ≠⌴乙 レ≠尺⌴ ≠𝞝 ┻冊𝝣 𝞝レ⌽3” by Reagan Ross
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Abriana Jetté is a poet, essayist, editor, and educator. Her writing has been featured in Best New Poets, Poetry New Zealand, River Teeth, The Moth, Plume, and other places. She teaches various writing courses for Kean University, where she also leads the Common Read program.
Éireann Lorsung
Éireann Lorsung works in a field of images, objects, movement, and texts. Her publications include Music for Landing Planes By, Her book, and The Century (all from Milkweed Editions). A 2016 NEA Fellow, she teaches at University College Dublin. More: ohbara.com.
Author photo credit: Ann Bartges.
Reagan Ross
Reagan Ross is a writer and video essayist from Los Angeles, CA. A Teach for America alum, Reagan has worked in special education for 15 years. They are currently studying creative writing at UCLA and working on a YA novel. You can find their video essays on YouTube under Nats Can Fly.
Joshua Garcia is the author of Pentimento (Black Lawrence Press 2024). His poetry has appeared in Ecotone, The Georgia Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the College of Charleston and has received a Stadler Fellowship from Bucknell University and an Emerge—Surface—Be Fellowship from The Poetry Project. He lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York.
