Archived Spotlight Posts

The Los Angeles Times recently announced a new hardcover book featuring editors’ favorite selections of true stories from the popular column, “L.A. Affairs.” The book, entitled L.A. Affairs Book: True Stories of Nightmare Dates and Happily Ever Afters, features a chapter written by Writing Programs’ Lauri Mattenson. Click here to purchase the book from the LA…

Writing Programs faculty member Maja Manojlovic will present her pitch for her team’s project, ScribeVR, at the Celebrating UCLA Entrepreneurs Pitch Showcase on November 2nd. ScribeVR is a concept for a virtual reality application for immersively composing, ideating and self-expression in 360 degree space. Last spring, Maja and her team members Annelie Rugg and Tom Garbelotti were…

Writing Programs’ Tara Prescott-Johnson was featured in UCLA Undergraduate Admission’s Faculty Spotlight event on October 10th during the Fall 2020 Open House. During the event, Dr. Prescott-Johnson and Chemistry professor Dr. Spokoyny discussed their passion for teaching and the ways in which they engage with students inside and outside the classroom. You can view a recording…

David Kipen and his student, Kennedy Hill, talk about reviving Roosevelt’s Federal Writers Project to help today’s unemployed writers during the pandemic. The interview, which appears on “L.A. Times Today,” follows an article David wrote for the Los Angeles Times in May 2020: “85 years ago, FDR saved American writers. Could it ever happen again?”…

“An unforgettable coming-of-age story, Until We’re Fish, blends the romance, violence, mood, and ethos of the Cuban Revolution with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love. With the truth of experience and the lyricism of poetry, Rodriguez Drissi constructs an exquisite, gossamer tale of revolution and hearts set adrift. A Don Quixote for our…

“Jaurretche uses a skillful examination of the rhetorical, linguistic, psychological, and emotional elements of spirituality to establish the central significance of prayer as a tool for understanding key aspects of Joyce’s compositional strategy in Finnegans Wake.” — Michael Patrick Gillespie, coeditor of Exiles: A Critical Edition Writing Programs’ Colleen Jaurretche provides a fresh analysis of Finnegans Wake by…

Writing Programs lecturers Randy Fallows and Tamar Christensen published their book Own Your Perspective: A Concise Exploration into Content and Form to help students “discover, develop, and revise an analytical essay.” Fallows and Christensen employ the AXES model (assertions, examples, explanations, and significance) and offer exercises throughout the book to assist students in achieving their…

The recipients of UCLA’s highest honor for teaching, the Distinguished Teaching Awards, were honored by the UCLA Academic Senate at the Andrea L. Rich Night to Honor Teaching awards ceremony at the Chancellor’s residence on Oct. 25, 2018. Recipients of the award are chosen from nominations by colleagues and leaders across campus, recommendations by students…

“What’s too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.” Writing Programs lecturer Donald Vincent’s first poetry collection Convenient Amnesia explores such powerful themes as “racial injustice, personal relationships, and the craft of the poetry, as well as family, and Black identity, among other intersections.” Vincent’s multifaceted analysis of collective and individual “convenient amnesia” has…

Acclaimed for its uniqueness and rigor among UCLA’s curricular offerings, the Honors Collegium features small seminars that are distinctive for their interdisciplinary approach to learning. Faculty direct these courses to promote a healthy intellectual exchange and confrontation of ideas and values among students, professors, and guest experts from different fields. Each year, Honors Programs recognizes…