May 1, 2001 - Personal Web Page: Author Mark Lewandowski served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Poland

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Poland: Peace Corps Poland : The Peace Corps in Poland: May 1, 2001 - Personal Web Page: Author Mark Lewandowski served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Poland

By Admin1 (admin) on Sunday, July 13, 2003 - 11:48 am: Edit Post

Author Mark Lewandowski served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Poland



Author Mark Lewandowski served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Poland

Mark Lewandowski

BIOGRAPHY

Mark Lewandowski is an English Instructor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He was born in Cheektowaga, New York in 1965. He received a B.A. in English from the University of Kansas in 1988, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Wichita State University in 1991. He has taught in numerous universities and colleges, including Siauliai University in Lithuania, where he was a Fulbright Scholar in Creative Writing and American Studies, and the Foreign Language Teacher’s College in Biala Podlaska, Poland, where he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. "Tourist Season at Auschwitz," originally published in The Gettysburg Review, was listed as a "Notable Essay" in The Best American Essays: 2000, and The Best American Travel Writing: 2000. In 2002, his story "Shallow Grave" was a finalist for the Willamette Award in Fiction offered by the Clackamas Literary Review, and he taught creative writing and travel writing in Paris and London under the auspices of the UL Lafayette/France Summer Program. He is currently involved in completing a collection of stories reflecting the recent history of Poland, as well as a collection of personal essays. His scholarly work reflects an ongoing interest in Eastern European Literature and Popular American Culture.

BRIEF CURRICULUM VITAE

Courses Taught

Creative Writing: Fiction; Creative Nonfiction Workshop; Fantasy Writing from Beowulf to Harry Potter, Modern Fiction; Contemporary American Novel; Contemporary American Short Story; The World of King Arthur; Teaching Developmental English; Surveys of American Literature; Novel and Short Fiction; World Literature; Teaching Methodology; English as a Second Language; Introduction to the Humanities; Composition and Literature; Composition; Developmental English.

Publications

Short Stories

"Shallow Grave," Clackamas Literary Review (forthcoming)

"Past Perfect," Rain Crow, Summer 2002

"Breaking the Halibut," The Potomac Review, Summer 2002

"George Was the Star at the Halibut Rodeo," The Evansville Review, Spring 2002

"A Man Loves His Cat," Pinyon, Spring 2001

"Substitutions," RE:AL, Spring 2001

"Beer Money," The Louisville Review, Fall 2000

"The Slime-Line Queen," Writers’ Forum, 1998

"To War! To War!" The North American Review, May-June, July-August 1998

"The Prince of Kodiak," The Red Cedar Review, Spring 1994

Creative Nonfiction

"Caroline," Cimarron Review, Summer 2002

"The Peace Corps: Love it or Leave it," The Yalobusha Review, Summer 2002

"Tourist Season at Auschwitz," The Gettysburg Review, Summer 1999

Honors

"Shallow Grave," Finalist, 2002 Willamette Award in Fiction, Clackamas Literary Review

"Tourist Season at Auschwitz" cited as "Notable Essay" in The Best American Essays: 2000, series editor, Robert Atwan

"Tourist Season at Auschwitz" cited as "Notable Travel Writing" in The Best American Travel Writing: 2000, series editor, Jason Wilson

Fulbright Grant, awarded in 1999 to teach Creative Writing and American Studies at Siauliai University, Lithuania

"Saturday Afternoon Matinee," selected as "Honorable Mention," Berkeley Fiction Review, Short-Short contest, 1998

Conferences, Workshops, Readings

"Power and Vision in John Boorman’s Excalibur," Popular Culture Association Conference, Philadelphia, PA, April 2001

Chair, "Working With Exceptional Needs Students," South Central Writing Centers Association Conference, March 2001

Fiction Reading, Deep South Festival of Writers, 2000

"Cajun Mardi Gras," North American Studies Conference, April 2000, Siauliai University, Lithuania

"’ ‘An Emersonian Looks at ‘Bartleby:’ Homage or Satire?" 1999 Conference for Teachers of English in Lithuania, Vilnius Pedagogical University, Lithuania

"Narrative Journeys in the Lyrics of Robert Hunter," Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, February 1999

"Family History as Alternative to Multiculturalism," Pedagogical Series, Converse College, South Carolina, October 1998

Fiction Reading, Deep South Writers Conference, 1998

"Creative Nonfiction" (workshop/craft lecture, with Luis Urrea), Deep South Writers Conference, 1998

"Poland: Culture and Traditions," Peace Corps Day, Lafayette Middle School, 1998

"Explorations into Folklore in the Writing Classroom," Conference of the Louisiana Association for College Composition, 1997

Biannual readings for UL’s Weekly Reading Series

ON TEACHING AND/OR WRITING

My writing, I believe, reflects my reading patterns. I read widely, and look for inspiration beyond the United States. Movements considered dead in the States (Social Realism, for example) are alive and kicking in other countries. As a writer, and a teacher, I believe students should never feel impaired or limited by what is currently in vogue in our small part of the world. I find it disheartening that so much literature produced today has nothing to say, and that great writers we study in literature classes, from Jane Austen to Thomas Pynchon, would be laughed out of creative writing programs. Writing programs should be multifaceted, and students need to enter them with a mind ready to tackle all forms of written expression, from the work of Classical rhetoricians to the stories, poems and essays appearing in the major annual anthologies of today. Ideally, a writing program is a forum for the free exchange of ideas, a means of encountering attitudes and styles often far different from our own. Writers should feel free to explore their own passions about writing and reading.

Read a Sample of Mark Lewandowski’s Writing

Go to UL-Lafayette Creative Writing Anthology

Creative Writing home Page

English Department Home Page

© 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.



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Story Source: Personal Web Page

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Poland; Writing - Poland

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