Writer and Academic: How Glendon Inspired a Creative Career for Novelist Mona Awad
When graduates speak of their time at Glendon, they often reflect fondly on the small class sizes and strong sense of community. For many, this created an environment for a well-rounded education and the opportunity to create a circle of lifelong friends.
These elements played a large role in the development of Mona Awad’s development as a writer. The novelist, journalist, and short story writer recalls how her time studying English at Glendon helped spur her creative career.
“I wrote my first poems there, and I had my first real creative breakthrough there, in a creative writing class,” Awad says. “I had a few professors – Barry Olshen, Ann Hutchison, and Ann Mandel – who were very encouraging of my creative writing. They read my poems and gave me feedback. The feedback wasn’t as important back then. Really, it was just that they took the time to listen.”
After graduating from Glendon, Awad earned an MFA in Fiction from Brown University, an MScr in English from the University of Edinburgh, as well as a Ph.D in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Denver. Evidently, her Glendon professors had an enormous impact on her by inspiring her to pursue writing both creatively and academically. But it was the friendships she made at Glendon that provided support both during her studies and beyond.
“I met people there – fellow students like Jess Riley and Shannon Maguire and Tobin Stuart – who became great friends and who really inspired and supported me in my writing. Shannon and I used to go to open mics all over Toronto. Tobin started a poetry zine and published [our] first poems. Jess Riley, who is brilliant and teaches at the University of Winnipeg now, is still one of my dearest friends and most valued readers.”
What exactly are her former classmates reading? That would be Awad’s extensive catalogue of work which includes short stories, articles for magazines including TIME Magazine, McSweeney’s, Electric Literature, and VICE, and her award-winning debut novel 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl as well as the upcoming novel, Bunny. Indeed, Awad highlights writing and publishing her novels as her proudest accomplishments.
When asked if there are any lessons from her time at Glendon that she often returns to during her writing career, Awad provides three: “1. Good friends are everything. 2. There’s something to your first drafts. Don’t discard them. 3. If there’s a rose garden nearby, that’s where you should be.”