“Am I doing enough? I mean, with the new generations of students, everybody's plugged in and knowledge is out there. So in the classroom, what are they actually coming to learn from me? What am I giving them?”

Lamees Al Ethari questions how to know when you’re doing enough as a teacher and a writer. In this episode, she discusses:

• 00:30 | Developing diverse course reading lists and the impact of representation on students 
• 02:39 | The development of her memoir Waiting for the Rain: An Iraqi Memoir and her poetry collection, From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris
• 05:13 | Writing about the trauma of war and the challenges of an audience that has no experience with it 
• 08:26 | Using constraints in group work and preparing students to give feedback
• 09:20 | Her experience working on The X Page: A Storytelling Workshop and helping writers find their voice in a second language
• 10:43 | How who she writes for has shifted over time

Guest Bio:

Lamees Al Ethari holds a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Waterloo, where she has been teaching creative and academic writing since 2015. She has published a collection of poems titled From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris (2018) and, more recently, a memoir titled Waiting for the Rain: An Iraqi Memoir (2019). Her poems have appeared in About Place Journal, The New Quarterly, The Malpais Review, and the anthology Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here. She is a Nonfiction Editor with The New Quarterly and a co-coordinator for The X Page: A Storytelling Workshop for Refugee and Immigrant Women.


About the Podcast:

Parallel Careers is a monthly podcast about the dual lives of writers who teach.

Few writers make their living from publication alone; many fill the gaps with teaching in both academic and community settings. Much of the work is precarious, and there are few opportunities for professional development.

Parallel Careers features writers with diverse practices and points of view—writers who are at the top of their game in both craft and pedagogy. Tune in to hear the big ideas and practical tips they take into their classrooms. Take their insights into your own class or craft.

Credits:

Parallel Careers is produced by Claire Tacon, in partnership with The New Quarterly magazine. Erin MacIndoe Sproule is our Technical Producer and Story Editor. Music composed by Amadeo Ventura. Financial and in-kind support provided by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, St. Jerome’s University, and the Government of Canada.

Access more writing and teaching tips from Lamees Al Ethari at:

tnq.ca/episode-1-lamees-al-ethari