Teaching

At Rocky Mountain College, Ashley teaches a wide range of creative writing courses across genres and levels, from Introduction to Creative Writing and Introductory Poetry Workshop to Advanced Fiction Writing and Senior Capstone. She also teaches the two-course Literary Journal sequence, during which students design, solicit work for, produce, and promote The Rocky Mountain Review.

As an instructor, she seeks to encourage her students’ intellectual curiosity and willingness to take risks and to create a space where all members of the classroom community feel supported as they engage in the process of making meaning and discovering their voices. Students have published work from her courses in Montana Quarterly, Allegheny Review, Sink Hollow, Pithead Chapel, and other venues.

In addition to her work at the college level, Ashley has considerable experience teaching in non-traditional settings. In 2016 she co-founded a creative writing group for student veterans and service members at Duquesne University, the DU Dog Tags Literary Society, and in 2017, she received grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for writing groups she initiated at a local vet center and public library. Beyond this, she has worked with at-risk youth in a group home setting and taught fiction and poetry writing in a summer camp for middle and high school students.

For additional information about Ashley’s teaching, including her professional activities and awards, please see her CV.