Assistant Professor, English
PhD, University of Utah, 2016
MFA, University of Montana, 2009
BA, Columbia College Chicago, 2005
Experiments in Creative Writing
Creative Writing: Fiction
College Writing II
Indie Lit & Small Press Publishing
Narrative Medicine
Playing with Memoir
In class I will lecture, conduct open discussion, and—most importantly—facilitate in-class writing. I believe we can use the tension of togetherness, and the momentousness of our meeting, to produce work that risks and communicates. No work is sui generis, produced in a vacuum and/or wholly unique; it is made in conversation (witting or more passive) with what has already been made, and in conversation with one's community. This is why it's so important that we read (copiously, curiously, with wit) what has already been written, and actively become one another's contemporaries. I am also interested in shifting focus from product to practice. What [radical] practices might you develop that could sustain, feed, or even challenge the stories you've wanted to tell?
I currently enjoy coordinating different co-curricular programs that our Writing concentrators and minors (and everyone else) can enjoy, such as our Senior Writing Contest (in which our seniors submit their writing to an outside judge, typically one of our esteemed visiting writers) and Senior Flex, a reading series for (you guessed it) seniors who are in the concentration or minor. There's also our "Under 27 Writer's Residency" program, in which our students host a young emerging writer here in North Adams in collaboration with MassMoCA. I believe that studying creative writing is just as much about community, and festivity, as it is about time well spent in a classroom.
My own prose experiments have traversed memoir, autofiction, the novel, and collaborative writing projects to touch upon largely feminist themes and I’ve been increasingly interested in disability poetics, in my teaching and writing.
I am the author of a novel, Revenge of the Scapegoat (Dorothy, a publishing project, 2022). My other books include Blackfishing the IUD (Wolfman Books, 2019) and Spain (Rescue Press, 2018). My shorter prose has been published in various places including Fence, Territory, The Offing, and Dreginald. For more on my work as an author and editor, please visit my website, www.carenbeilin.com.
Revenge of the Scapegoat. Dorothy, a publishing project, 2022.
Blackfishing the IUD. The Last Books, 2020 (European edition).
Blackfishing the IUD. Wolfman Books, 2019.
SPAIN. Rescue Press, 2018.
The University of Pennsylvania. Noemi Press, 2014.
