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Dr. Bill Beverly

Associate Professor of English

202-884-9221
beverlyb@trinitydc.edu

Programs

Courses Taught

ENGL 107 English Composition
ENGL 150 Writing about Literature
ENGL 200 Introduction to Creative Writing
ENGL 214 Major United States Writers I
ENGL 215 Major United States Writers II
ENGL 283 Stories and Their Writers
ENGL 284 Modern Lives: Memoir as Literature
ENGL 299 HON:First-Year Honors Seminar
ENGL 301 Creative Writing: Poetry
ENGL 302 Creative Writing: Fiction
ENGL 325 Works of Shakespeare
ENGL 365 Contemporary US Fiction
ENGL 451 Writers of the American South
ENGL 470 Wright, Ellison, and Baldwin
ENGL 499 Senior Colloquium

Education

  • A.B., English/Creative Writing, Oberlin College
  • M.A., Creative Writing, University of Florida
  • Ph.D., English, University of Florida

Interests

  • Creative writing (fiction, poetry, nonfiction)
  • U.S. literature
  • Teaching composition
  • Popular culture and cultural studies
  • Crime literature
  • Film
  • Gender studies
  • Children's literature

Awards

  • British Book Award for 2016 novel Dodgers
  • PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction Finalist for 2016 novel Dodgers
  • Rivendell Writers’ Colony Fellowship
  • Individual Artist Award, Maryland State Arts Council, 2016
  • The Walter F. Dakin Fellowship in fiction, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, 2016
  • Los Angeles Times Book Prize for 2016 novel Dodgers

Select Works Published

  • DODGERS, a novel
    Crown, 2016
  • OLD FLAME: FROM THE FIRST 10 YEARS OF 32 POEMS Magazine
    WordFram, 2013
  • ON THE LAM: NARRATIVES OF FLIGHT IN J. EDGAR HOOVER'S AMERICA
    University Press of Mississippi, 2008
  • Stories and short writing in print or online
    Gargoyle, The Paris Review, The Mississippi Review, ShortList, CrimeTime, Bookanista, and elsewher,
  • Presentation
    Modern Language Association Conference, 2011
  • Presentation
    Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference, 2009
  • Presentation
    Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference, 2013
  • Presentation
    National Council of Teachers of English Conference, 2028

Philosophy

I stress the development of voice. Students must learn to speak clearly and write well, but their le ssons will be better learned and their triumphs more richly felt if they feel free to invest themselves in their writing, and if courses give them opportunities to address readers and gather response. Students who understand that they speak from a position within culture and through a nuanced language will speak precisely, confidently, and with intent. To read a beautifully composed text, be it Hamlet or an ad for chocolate cake, and to understand the act of close reading--its mechanics, its motivations, its inexhaustibility and inflexibility--provides a foundational and empowering experience to students in any major. Even though its mission is already overloaded and its institutional prestige relatively low, freshman English should aim for no less than this: to provide a sustained immersion in intellectual labor that lays the groundwork for four years of study.