Editing for connection and persuasion
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Since the Fall 2008 semester, I have taught composition, creative writing, and literature at Coastal Carolina University. More recently, I have been teaching graduate-level literary magazine production.
I have a bachelors degree in English with a concentration in writing and editing and a track in political science (1995) from N.C.
University in Raleigh, N.C., and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing with an emphasis on literary nonfiction (2008) from Queens University in Charlotte, N.C.
I have 11 years of experience in newspaper newsrooms, including two section-editor positions at The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C. I have won a N.C.
Association award for commentary (while still at N.C. State) and a S.C.
Association award for business writing at The Sun News.
During my newspaper years, I completed the Committee of Concerned Journalists' Newsroom Seminar and the Knight Ridder Assigning Editors Seminar.
From 2001-2004, I paused my newspaper career. My wife and I opened and operated an independent coffeehouse and used bookstore in Myrtle Beach.
Room, it offered live music, art exhibits, and author signings. I have dusty coffee-brewing and espresso certifications from the Specialty Coffee Association of America.
While my wife and I still had The Living Room, I returned to The Sun News in late 2003. I worked in the business section and then in features. I left The Sun News in March 2006 to begin graduate school. In the summer of 2006, I received a scholarship to study with poet and playwright Jeanne Murray Walker at the C.S.
Institute at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. I continued to work as a journalist on a freelance basis from 2006-2016.
18 years teaching English at a university; 5 years editing a literary journal; 11 years as a newspaper reporter and section editor
CliftonStrengths: Empathy, Ideation, Adaptability, Context, Strategic
Johnson O'Connor Aptitudes: Observation, Analytical Reasoning, Foresight, Memory for Design, Pitch Discrimination, Silograms
Master of Fine Arts in Literary Nonfiction from Queens University in Charlotte (2008)
Bachelor of Arts in English from N.C. State University in Raleigh (1995)
