{"id":58308,"date":"2014-04-01T13:42:26","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T17:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308//?p=58308"},"modified":"2020-03-26T19:06:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T23:06:19","slug":"meet-ucf-english-professor-balances-teaching-writing-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308//meet-ucf-english-professor-balances-teaching-writing-family/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308//","title":{"rendered":"Meet UCF English Professor Who Balances Teaching, Writing and Family"},"content":{"rendered":"
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u201cSerious writer/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u201d and /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u201cOne of our very best young writers/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u201d are among the praises that flank the back sleeve of The Heaven of Animals: Stories, a collection of short stories by David James Poissant, or Jamie, an assistant professor of English at UCF./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n Poissant/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019s first book, released in March, is a collection of tales about families and relationships published by Simon & Schuster./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n This weekend, Poissant will join more than 30 authors from around the country at the UCF Book Festival, which will be held Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the CFE Arena. The festival is free and open to the public./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n Read on for more about Poissant, a winner of the Playboy College Fiction Contest whose short stories have appeared in The Atlantic and in the New Stories from the South and Best New American Voices anthologies, among many other publications./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n I didn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019t figure out that I wanted to be a writer until after college. I was in my early 20s. I taught high school English and wrote during the summers. Once I figured out that the summers weren/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019t enough for me, I knew that I needed to make a major life change. I applied to MFA programs, got into the 海角直播 of Arizona, and my wife and I traded Atlanta, Ga., for Tucson, Ariz. I/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019ve been writing seriously ever since, about nine years now./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n How did you end up teaching at UCF?/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n After Arizona, I went to the 海角直播 of Cincinnati to earn my PhD. As I was finishing up at UC, I applied to creative-writing jobs around the country. I was very happy to accept the job at UCF, and I/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019m thrilled to be a part of the MFA faculty where I get to mentor and work with graduate students./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n What/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019s your favorite part about being a professor?/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n The students! Their passion for reading and writing is contagious. And their exuberance helps me to stay motivated. It/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019s easy to forget when you/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u2019re lucky, and having students who are so excited about writing reminds me not to take what I have for granted./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n Your most recent book, The Heaven of Animals: Stories, is a collection of stories centering on family and relationships. What inspired the subject?/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n I wanted to write a book about love, but I wanted it to be full of stories that most people would never call /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u201clove stories./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n These are stories about guilt and atonement, about hurt and redemption. We love the people who make up our families, but we hurt those same people, too (sometimes on purpose, and sometimes without meaning to), and I wanted to explore both sides of that difficult equation./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/58308/n