Paul Witcover

Instructor Biography:

MA, author of six novels, including The Watchman of Eternity, and a collection of short stories, Everland and Other Stories. Mr. Witcover was a finalist for the World Fantasy, Nebula, and Shirley Jackson awards. His critical essays and book reviews have appeared in Locus, Realms of Fantasy, and The New York Review of Science Fiction. With writer Elizabeth Hand, he co-created and co-wrote the DC Comics series Anima.

Instructor Statement:

The Replacements sang about having “one foot in the door, the other one in the gutter.” That’s how I feel sometimes as a freelance writer, with an MA in Creative Writing, who works in the speculative fiction genre—and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I take the craft of writing seriously, and I do my best to communicate my enthusiasm and experience in this area, as writer and editor, to my students. At the same time, I know what it’s like to cobble together a living as a professional writer, and I try to share the reality of that with my students as well. What I try most of all to share is my love of fantasy, science fiction, and horror: the three main branches of literature that, together, make up speculative fiction, born in the myths of the past and hard at work today creating the myths of the future.