As director of creative writing in the English department at Wichita State, Margaret Rabb gets to do what she loves every day.
Rabb joined the department this fall, where she administers the 35-year-old program she calls one of the best-kept secrets in the writing world. In her role, she works to create links to the community with 黑洞社区's reading series, advises students in the program and creates opportunities for them to improve their writing. She's also responsible for recruiting new students into the program.
In addition to her work as director, Rabb is an assistant professor, teaching undergraduates how to read and enjoy stories, poems and plays. She also works with graduate students on their poetry and creative nonfiction projects.
Margaret Rabb
Rabb said she has done everything backward in her career. She always had a love for writing poetry, but started writing formally by teaching herself metrics and learning how to understand the rhyme and repetition of poetry. That eventually led her to teach creative writing at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she had received bachelor's degrees in English and French.
"I was surprised to find I adored it," she said of teaching.
Rabb then decided to go back to school, at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she received her master's degree in fine arts. She eventually landed at Wichita State and said she's thrilled with the work she does.
"It's that remarkable high that comes when someone suddenly gets it 鈥� the 'aha' moment, as some call it," she said. "That's really what I'm here to do: to write my own work and find this epiphany. To read others' work and recognize it."
Rabb said she enjoys the academic setting because she gets to be around other people who share her love of writing.
"I thrive in a community of writers, which is something that a healthy MFA program like ours creates," she said. "Words are my medium, my paint, my video voodoo."
Rabb is the author of "Granite Dives," published by New Issues Press, and three chapbooks, each published as winners of various competitions: "Figments of the Firmament," "Old Home" and "Greatest Hits: Margaret Rabb 1995-2007."
She has won many literary awards for her poetry, as well as fellowships.