Connie D. Griffin

Connie D. Griffin is an Assistant Professor with Commonwealth Honors College. She received her B.A. from the University of Tulsa, her M.A. from Boston College, and her Ph.D. from UMass Amherst. She previously taught at Boston College where she was affiliated with the English Department, the Women’s Studies Program, the Creative Writing Program, and the Capstone Program. Her research and teaching have ranged across the areas of gender studies, feminist and postmodernist theory and pedagogical methods, the politics of identity, multicultural literary studies of the Americas, and narrative nonfiction.

Her creative writing courses have ranged across the subgenres of narrative nonfiction to include the memoir, literary journalism, and the lyric essay. She has taught memoir writing in the Blue Hills Writing Summer Institute for the past few years. Her book, To Tell the Truth: Practice and Craft in Narrative Nonfiction (Pearson/Longman 2008), provides an in-depth analysis of and guide to writing in the genre and includes an anthology of narrative nonfiction, More recently, Dr. Griffin has taught in the Journalism Program at UMass Amherst, including courses in feature and magazine writing, public relations, gender and journalism, as well as multimedia, investigative, literary, and citizen journalism. She currently teaches the interdisciplinary honors seminar, Ghosts that Haunt Us, as well as full semester Dean’s Book courses for Commonwealth College. She can be contacted at (413) 577-0714 or at cgriffin@honors.umass.edu.