Heather Bryant

Senior Lecturer in the Writing Program

Specialist in twentieth-century British and Irish literature; writer.

Heather Corbally Bryant (A.B. Harvard, PhD, University of Michigan) is a Senior Lecturer in the Writing Program. Previously, she taught at Michigan, Harvard, and Penn State where she received awards for her teaching. She is the author of the prize-winning book on the relation between war and creativity: How Will The Heart Endure: Elizabeth Bowen and the Landscape of War, a work of creative nonfiction on Shanghai in the 1920s: You Can't Wrap Fire in Paper, a reissue of her journalist grandmother's autobiography, Assigned to Adventure, and several books of poems. Her eleventh and most recent book of poems, The Coffin Makers, was published in 2023. Her work has been published in the anthologies: In Another Voice, and Open-Eyed, Full Throated: An Anthology of American/Irish Poets, Mythos, a Gallery Press poetry collection, several Old Frog Pond Farm collections, as well as Trasna, The Paddock Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Harvard Review.

Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award, and have won honorable mention in the Open Chapbook Competition of the Finishing Line Press. She has been a fellow at Millay Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. She has received a Newhouse Fellowship from Wellesley College and a Denis Diderot Grant to attend a residency at Chateau d'Orquevaux.

She teaches first-year writing, the Writing Intensive Course, 201, and a Calderwood Seminar on 21st Century Women Writers.

website: heathercorballybryant.com
twitter: heathercbryant3
medium: heathercbryant

Education

  • A.B., Harvard College
  • M.A., University of Michigan
  • Ph.D., University of Michigan

Currently teaching

  • We are living in an age of unprecedented access to information and have the means for immediate communication, thanks to advances in technology. Connecting to this virtual, ceaselessly changing world, however, often means turning away from the physical realm and prioritizing immediate reaction over thoughtful reflection. In this interdisciplinary course, we will investigate the boundless opportunities, and the real challenges, of living and writing in the age of distraction. How do we understand one another and ourselves as we toggle between the virtual and physical worlds? How do we create meaningful ideas and united communities? How does the reading and writing we do in the classroom inform what we read and write on social media, and vice versa? Students will consider these questions as they study literature, art, psychology, and technology, and as they explore both virtual spaces and physical ones, including the Wellesley campus and other area locales.