Name: Dorothy Chan
Year: Graduate
Major: Creative Writing Poetry PhD
Hometown: Allentown, Pennsylvania
Her Campus (HC): What made you want to pursue Creative Writing?
Dorothy Chan (DC): I’ve always felt artistically minded. Pursuing creative writing felt natural. It was instinct.
HC: Did you have any doubts going into this major?
DC: No doubts at all.
HC: I’m a Creative Writing Major myself, and in the past semester I have had people tell me multiple times that Creative Writing as a major is useless. What do you think?
DC: No, it’s not useless. Practically speaking, there are opportunities in publishing, editing and teaching. And creativity can be applied to so many fields. More importantly, what I really want to emphasize here is that I believe students should pursue what they’re passionate about. The more passionate you are about something, the better you’ll do. I cannot stress that enough.
HC: What have you learned in all your time at FSU?
DC: David Kirby and Barbara Hamby are the co-chairs of my dissertation committee, and they’ve helped me tremendously, from further developing my poetic voice, to varying my language and making the words on the page more exciting, to disciplining my lines and stanzas. I cannot thank them enough, and I feel extremely lucky to have them as mentors. I’ve also enjoyed teaching a broad variety of classes such as Article and Essay Technique, Poetic Technique and Women in Literature. I love it when students are very passionate about the material and form a lot of opinions.
HC: What do you have planned after FSU?
DC: I will continue working on my poetry manuscripts.
HC: What obstacles do think women in particular face in writing and trying to get their works published or noticed?
DC: I need to stress intersectionality here. It’s important for women, LGBTQ+ and minority writers to continue writing and submitting their work. It’s important to read works by these authors and push the literary world as a diverse, inclusive space.
HC: In what ways are you involved in the FSU English department?
DC: Besides being a student and instructor, I am the Assistant Editor of The Southeast Review. I also help Dr. Dennis Moore organize the U.S. Literature Discussion Group which meets several Fridays a semester, and I coordinate the Submitting to Literary Journals Graduate Discussion Group. I am also a College Composition Program graduate peer mentor.
Dorothy has her first full-length poetry collection, titled Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold, available this April. In the meantime, you can check out her chapbook, Chinatown Sonnets, on her website at dorothypoetry.com.
Courtesy: Dorothy Chan