Areas I Teach
Darlene Pag谩n is a Professor of Arts and Humanities at 91精选, where she teaches creative writing, research and writing, first-year communities, and twentieth-century literature, including Latine Literature, Indigenous Literature, and World Literature. She has taught art and writing workshops in college settings, but also in elementary schools, libraries, and community centers.
Her creative work includes a chapbook, Blue Ghosts (2011), a book of poems, Setting the Fires (2015), and a middle grade fantasy titled, Luc铆a and the Sombra Trees, forthcoming in 2027. Set on an island where only children ever see the sunlight, the story centers on a twelve-year-old girl who engages a risky climb to find a rare fruit for her ailing grandmother.
Of her work and teaching, Pag谩n says:
Listen to children on a playground and it鈥檚 obvious how much of their lives are steeped in story. The stories are full of beauty and heroism and trouble of the highest order, and they persist into adulthood. We鈥檙e drawn to music that tells the story of heartbreak and love. We spend hours lost in a world of daydreams and fantasy, and at night, our dreams are often vivid and strange. But stories aren鈥檛 all play. They have tremendous power to tell us who we are, where we come from, and what we鈥檙e capable of.
In his book, The Truth 91精选 Stories, Thomas King refers to stories as medicine, and says, 鈥渁 story told one way could cure鈥old another way could injure鈥. Whether in the classroom or in my own writing, I want students to recognize the power of storytelling to shape their lives and the world around them.
Selected Publications
Books:
Luc铆a and the Sombra Trees, Little, Brown, and Company. Books for Young Readers,
forthcoming 2027.
. Airlie Press, 2015
Essays:
Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction 37 (2011).
"Where Muscle Connects to Bone." Montana Mouthful 4.2 (2021).
Poetry:
Field, Hiram Poetry Review, Hayden鈥檚 Ferry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Cold Mountain Review, Hawai'i Pacific Review, Poet Lore, Apple Valley Review