Department Profile: Professor Amy Catanzano, Assistant Professor, Creative Writing

Professor Catanzano is a poet and the author of three books. She has been honored with major national awards and prizes for her poetry. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she studied the craft of poetry and poetics. One focus in her work as a poet explores the transdisciplinary intersections of poetry and science. She regularly gives poetry readings and talks in the United States and has conducted research at scientific centers for particle physics, dark matter research, and radio astronomy.

At Wake Forest, Professor Catanzano enjoys mentoring students and teaching a range of approaches to writing poetry. Her undergraduate and graduate poetry workshops are designed to be supportive and rigorous classroom communities where students reflect on the creative, personal, philosophical, theoretical, cultural, social, and political implications of working with language as an artistic practice. Her workshops offer students both practical grounding and an exploratory space in which to write poetry, read poetry, and respond to the poetry of their peers. This coursework, designed to cultivate each student’s passion for creative writing, prepares students for sustained creative activity inside the classroom and beyond.

As a faculty sponsor of the Student Reading Series, co-director of the Dillon Johnston Writers Reading Series, and former director of the Creative Writing minor, Professor Catanzano is committed to supporting a thriving literary and arts community at Wake Forest.