Author. Professor. Telepathist.
Creative writing professor Joan Connor balances writing, teaching and telepathy
By Jeremy Bookmyer, Staff Writer
April 26, 2007 | 6 a.m.
“I always knew I was going to write. I think in my family it was rather presumed that you were going to teach,” said Joan Connor, director of creative writing and professor of fiction, who has spent her entire life as a writer and an educator. Like many of the professors of writing here at Ohio University, Connor has won a number of awards for her writing.
With four published books of short stories and a score more waiting to be published, Connor has written a great deal over the course of her career. She has had a number of her short stories published in journals across the country. Connor’s works have evolved over the years from autobiographic short stories to the almost ‘folkloric.’ Many of the short stories that Connor has done are ‘found stories.’ These are the focus of her book “History Lessons.”
History Lessons
Published in 2003, Connor’s favorite work, “History Lessons,” represents a decade of work. The novel features a wide array of characters from American popular culture, such as Ray Charles, as well as many others. The book has received the AWP Award for Short Fiction. Of Connor’s published works, this book also contains the least amount of autobiographical storytelling, a style of writing she says she has been slowly moving away from.
"I think I was teaching myself something in that collection," Connor said. "I’m very weak at plot, and so I was trying to figure out, ‘how do you address that?’ So I started writing found stories based on what I’d read."
On Writing and Telepathy
Connor’s essay “On Writing and Telepathy,” (which can be read here) is an interesting read as well. In it she discusses her belief that there is something more to writing than just scribbling an idea down on paper. There is mysticism to it; there is something more that a writer can tune in to if they are receptive. Connor retells several events during the course of her writings where either something out of the ordinary has occurred or information and ideas have come to her in strange ways.
“Take this—I was in the mountains of Vermont writing about a fan obsessed with Ray Charles," Connor said. "I realized as I wrote that I needed another Ray Charles' lyric. At that moment on VPR a Ray Charles song came on, and I typed it simultaneously into my story: 'Baby, way down in my soul, I been a fool for you. ' Kismet.”
Connor writes that before beginning a story she suspects that she is "prewriting." The story is forming in her mind before she ever begins putting it down on paper.
An Educator
Most of Connor’s writing is done during the summer so that her writing and teaching do not conflict with each other. The rest of the year is devoted to teaching. She has taught at several institutions over the years including: three boarding schools, the University of Southern Maine and here at OU. While she teaches both undergraduate and graduate classes, Connor's personal favorite is her creative fiction-writing course.
“I love my introductory creative writing workshop," Connor said. "They haven’t read as much as some of the more senior students, and so they’ll try anything.” She is willing to work with her students to assist them in the writing process.
Her advice to people who are trying to write? Simple. “Eat Broccoli.” (It will make you live longer.) Also, “There is only one way to write, to read and write. You have to be so persistent, to become immune to rejection … It is hard work and it takes discipline, but it is also true that it [writing] is a lot of fun.”
Future Writing
Currently, Connor is working on a book of stories about The Ridges here in Athens. She does not intend to stop writing any time soon, so there will certainly be more essays and short stories from her in the near future.
Professor Joan Connor is currently teaching English 361: Creative Writing: Fiction here at OU. A few of her books, “History Lessons,” “We Who Live Apart” and “Here on Old Route 7” can be found at Alden Library.
Her book “The World Before Mirrors” has won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize for 2006.