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Aaron Devine
Educator. Author. Community Advocate.
Education
2010-2013 MFA in Fiction, University of Massachusetts-Boston
2011-2012 Certificate in Spanish-English Translation, UMass Boston
2000-2004 BA in English, minor in Spanish; magna cum laude, Boston University
Teaching
UMass Boston
Fall 2012 – present
Course Title: “Sports & Social Change: Leveraging Attention into Action”
School: UMB Honors College
Semesters taught: Fall 2019 (forthcoming)
Description: In this course, we will examine past and contemporary examples of how sports can be leveraged to make a positive social impact. Together, students will brainstorm, outline, and implement their own community-based projects to address a particular social imbalance during the course of the semester.
Course Title: “The Language of Illness”
School: UMB Honors College and College of Advancement and Professional Studies (CAPS)
Semesters taught: Fall 2015, Summer 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018
Description: From recent YA-sensation The Fault in Our Stars to the many hit TV medical dramas, there is something about illness that connects deeply and innately in our experience. Perhaps it is when we are most vulnerable that language becomes most vital. And at the same time: most difficult to express. In this course, we ask: What is the language of illness? What “undiscovered countries” can we explore from our own encounters with illness: personal, professional, or intellectual?
Course Title: “The Art of Storytelling“
School: UMB Honors College
Semesters taught: Fall 2016, Fall 2018
Description: Whether seated around ancestral fires or streaming podcasts through earbuds, humankind has an innate thirst for stories that can express who we are and imagine who we might become. This course explores the craft and function of storytelling as a tool for individual and social empowerment. Students study cultural perspectives on storytelling while writing, adapting, and performing their own stories focused around identity and community. At the culmination of the semester, the class produces an original storytelling event at UMass Boston aimed at fostering conversation and community on campus.
Course Title: “English Sounds and Storytelling”
School: CAPS English As a Second Language (ESL) at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2017 – present
Description: In this class, we build fluency and confidence in our speaking and listening skills. Students learn about story structure and practice telling stories throughout the semester. We will listen to, read, write, record, and perform our stories in class every week. Lessons teach pronunciation, intonation, presentation, and listening strategies. Exercises give students fun, thought-provoking ways to share language.
Course Title: “City of Boston: Language and Identity”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2016 – Fall 2018
Description: What is the relationship between language and identity? Which words do we use to define ourselves as individuals or communities? In this course, we read contemporary essays by Bostonians and international authors reflecting on the city and their place in it. Students compose their own essays during the semester to explore place and their relationship to it.
Course Title: “An American Road Trip”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2016 – Spring 2017
Description: Since its inception, America has built mythology around the road as a pathway to expansion, discovery, individualism, and conquest. From the first pilgrims to explorers Lewis and Clark; from Henry Ford’s Model-T automobile to the modern American road trip inspired by Beat poets (or Brittany Spears); the open road has deep connections to how Americans view themselves. In this class, we seek to understand how American culture has been shaped—for better and for worse—by its great roads.
Course Title: “Learning Language through New Media”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2014 – Spring 2016
Description: In this course, we collaborate as student journalists to design, write, edit, and share a blog for international students in Boston. Students practice language skills while learning new media technology and its terminology in English. Students also learn basic principles of journalism and debate media ethics.
Course Title: “Beginning ESL through Art and Music”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Summer 2015, Summer 2018
Description: In this class, we use the five senses to discover vocabulary while enjoying cross-cultural encounters with art and music. Students visit local museums and engage in their own art- or music-making while building vocabulary and camaraderie in the classroom.
Course Title: “A Home in Language”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2013 – Spring 2015
Description: What creates the feeling of “home”? Can a foreign language come to feel familiar? In this class, creative exercise and group work help us find new language and perspectives. Perhaps even to feel at-home away from home in Boston.
Course Title: “Intro to Creative Writing”
School: English Department
Semesters: Fall 2012
Description: What makes a story or a poem meaningful to you? This question is at the heart of our course, and we'll plot our course in search of its answer. In this course, we seek to understand our own unique ways of looking at the world, and how to give them artistic expression.
Academic Service
2017-present Faculty Advisor to Write on the DOT
2016-17 Started ESL Teachers Workshop to enhance group feeling and offer curriculum support among staff.
2014-16 Filmed annual Fun>Fear Halloween music video series with international students
2015 Created ESL library to make leveled English language reading materials accessible to students.
2010-12 Hispanic Writers Week assistant at UMass Boston
Workshops and Conferences
2018 Leader: Memoir and Personal Essay Writing Workshop at Egleston Public Library
2018 Presenter: Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology at UMass Boston, “3D Printing:
Language as Key”
2017 Leader: Staff Creative Writing Sessions at Boston Children’s Hospital
2017 Presenter: Brazilian Teachers Summit at UMB, “Using New Media and Creative Writing to teach ESL”
2015 Leader: SONAD Glen Brook Youth Writers Workshop; Harrisville, NH
2015 Presenter: “Words of Healing” Concurrent Session, Association of Pediatric Hematologic and Oncology
Nurses National Conference in Providence, RI
2013 Panelist: “Writing Outside the Classroom,” Assoc. of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, Boston
2012 Instructor: Writing for Children Workshop Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UMass Boston
2011-13 Write on the DOT co-creator, coordinator, and series emcee; Dorchester, MA
2008-09 Leader: Youth Creative Writing Workshops at 826Boston; Roxbury, MA
2008 Facilitator: Story of Stuff community workshops with Invested Citizens; Boston, MA and New York, NY
Community Engagement/Volunteer
2016-17 Team Walk Coordinator, Eversource Walk for Children; Boston, MA
2015 Mentor for the PresenTense Institute; Boston, MA
2011-13 Lead Coordinator for Write on the DOT; Dorchester, MA
2008-10 Muse & the Marketplace Volunteer, Grub Street; Boston, MA
2008 Memoir Project Intern, Grub Street; Jamaica Plain, MA
2008 The Dance Complex Volunteer; Cambridge, MA
2005 Tennis instructor and Play Tennis Day Coordinator at Raymond Recreation; Washington D.C.
Publications
Author
“Blizzard Poem,” Window Cat Press, 2018 and forthcoming in Welcome to the Neighborhood: An Anthology of American
Coexistence, Ohio University Press (Dec. 2019)
“After the Minneapolis Miracle: Have Vikings Fans Truly Won?” The Good Men Project, 2018
“Witness,” Story Showcase: Live at the Podcast Garage, 2017
“Are You My Uber?” McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 2016
“Hank vs. Henry: Howard Bryant’s The Last Hero,” The Good Men Project, 2014
“Dakota Falls and Other Stories,” UMass Boston MFA Thesis, 2013
“Interview with Adam Haslett,” The Breakwater Review, 2011
“Homerun Sports Stories,” Don’t Forget to Write: A Collection of Creative Writing from 826Boston, 2011
“In Webster’s,” Flashquake.com and The Inman Review, 2010
Wonder/Wander: 522 Days in Latin America, Self-published, 2009
Translator
“Cuerpo Público” (Public Body), by Mariela Cordero; Origins Journal, 2018
“Fragment 31” by Sappho; Write on the DOT: Volume II, 2013
“Samsara” by Alfredo Alegria; Write on the DOT: Volume I, 2012
Qhapaq Ñan: The Inka Path of Wisdom by Javier Lajo Lazo; Amaro Runa Press, 2007
Editor
Write on the DOT: Volume V (forthcoming May 2019)
In the Direction of Truth & Love: Memoir and Personal Essay, workshop chapbook, 2018
The Language of Illness (Volumes 1-3); UMass Boston, 2015, 2016, 2018
Write on the DOT: Volume IV, 2018
Chapbooks (various) of creative writing and translation by ESL students at UMass Boston, 2013-2018
Escribir Es Una Fiesta, Anthology of Student Writing from Hispanic Writers Week, 2010-2011
Write on the DOT: Volume II, 2012
The View From Here: Volume 2, Boston Children’s Hospital internal publication, 2011.
Write on the DOT: Volume 1, 2011
Grants/Awards
2018 Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Grant
2013 Creative writing award for outstanding achievement (UMB MFA program)
2013 Program of the Year award for Write on the DOT, UMass Boston Beacon Awards
2005 Georgia/Petworth Neighborhood Advisory Neighborhood Commission grant for Play Tennis Day
2005 Coca-Cola Foundation community grant for Play Tennis Day
2004 Polytropos Award from the Core Curriculum at BU
Residencies
2011-17 Writer in Residence, The Creative Arts Program at Boston Children’s Hospital
2011 Writer in Residence at Pearl Street Yoga Studio, Dorchester Arts Collaborative
Live Readings
2017 Unearthed Reading Series at home.stead café in Dorchester; It Can’t Happen Here Marathon
Resistance Reading (chapter 11 reader) at Brookline Booksmith (hosted by Apt literary journal).
2015 “A Night of Travel Stories” at Trident Bookseller & Café and Waterstone at Wellesley Authors Series
2014 Reading/performance of Wonder/Wander: 522 Days in Latin America at Dot2Dot Café
Other Work Experiences
2009-11 Server, Orinoco Kitchen (Brookline, South End)
2008 Community Director, Invested Citizens (Boston)
2008 Children’s Literature Anthologies Team, SABIS Educational Systems (Eden Prairie, MN)
2006-07 Various jobs while living abroad (Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina)
2006 Build Second Coordinator, KaBoom!: Play Matters for All Kids (various locations, U.S.)
2006 Server, Tryg’s restaurant (Minneapolis, MN)
2004-05 Behrend Builders Coordinator/AVODAH fellow, Jewish Community Center (Washington D.C.)
Languages
Spanish—can read, write, and speak fluently
Hebrew—can read
2010-2013 MFA in Fiction, University of Massachusetts-Boston
2011-2012 Certificate in Spanish-English Translation, UMass Boston
2000-2004 BA in English, minor in Spanish; magna cum laude, Boston University
Teaching
UMass Boston
Fall 2012 – present
- Design and implement university prep curriculum in grammar, composition, conversation, and reading comprehension courses for international students seeking undergraduate and graduate admission
- Build and teach literature/creative writing hybrid courses to undergraduate students of various concentrations for elective credit with the Honors College
Course Title: “Sports & Social Change: Leveraging Attention into Action”
School: UMB Honors College
Semesters taught: Fall 2019 (forthcoming)
Description: In this course, we will examine past and contemporary examples of how sports can be leveraged to make a positive social impact. Together, students will brainstorm, outline, and implement their own community-based projects to address a particular social imbalance during the course of the semester.
Course Title: “The Language of Illness”
School: UMB Honors College and College of Advancement and Professional Studies (CAPS)
Semesters taught: Fall 2015, Summer 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018
Description: From recent YA-sensation The Fault in Our Stars to the many hit TV medical dramas, there is something about illness that connects deeply and innately in our experience. Perhaps it is when we are most vulnerable that language becomes most vital. And at the same time: most difficult to express. In this course, we ask: What is the language of illness? What “undiscovered countries” can we explore from our own encounters with illness: personal, professional, or intellectual?
Course Title: “The Art of Storytelling“
School: UMB Honors College
Semesters taught: Fall 2016, Fall 2018
Description: Whether seated around ancestral fires or streaming podcasts through earbuds, humankind has an innate thirst for stories that can express who we are and imagine who we might become. This course explores the craft and function of storytelling as a tool for individual and social empowerment. Students study cultural perspectives on storytelling while writing, adapting, and performing their own stories focused around identity and community. At the culmination of the semester, the class produces an original storytelling event at UMass Boston aimed at fostering conversation and community on campus.
Course Title: “English Sounds and Storytelling”
School: CAPS English As a Second Language (ESL) at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2017 – present
Description: In this class, we build fluency and confidence in our speaking and listening skills. Students learn about story structure and practice telling stories throughout the semester. We will listen to, read, write, record, and perform our stories in class every week. Lessons teach pronunciation, intonation, presentation, and listening strategies. Exercises give students fun, thought-provoking ways to share language.
Course Title: “City of Boston: Language and Identity”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2016 – Fall 2018
Description: What is the relationship between language and identity? Which words do we use to define ourselves as individuals or communities? In this course, we read contemporary essays by Bostonians and international authors reflecting on the city and their place in it. Students compose their own essays during the semester to explore place and their relationship to it.
Course Title: “An American Road Trip”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2016 – Spring 2017
Description: Since its inception, America has built mythology around the road as a pathway to expansion, discovery, individualism, and conquest. From the first pilgrims to explorers Lewis and Clark; from Henry Ford’s Model-T automobile to the modern American road trip inspired by Beat poets (or Brittany Spears); the open road has deep connections to how Americans view themselves. In this class, we seek to understand how American culture has been shaped—for better and for worse—by its great roads.
Course Title: “Learning Language through New Media”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2014 – Spring 2016
Description: In this course, we collaborate as student journalists to design, write, edit, and share a blog for international students in Boston. Students practice language skills while learning new media technology and its terminology in English. Students also learn basic principles of journalism and debate media ethics.
Course Title: “Beginning ESL through Art and Music”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Summer 2015, Summer 2018
Description: In this class, we use the five senses to discover vocabulary while enjoying cross-cultural encounters with art and music. Students visit local museums and engage in their own art- or music-making while building vocabulary and camaraderie in the classroom.
Course Title: “A Home in Language”
School: CAPS ESL at UMass Boston
Semesters: Fall 2013 – Spring 2015
Description: What creates the feeling of “home”? Can a foreign language come to feel familiar? In this class, creative exercise and group work help us find new language and perspectives. Perhaps even to feel at-home away from home in Boston.
Course Title: “Intro to Creative Writing”
School: English Department
Semesters: Fall 2012
Description: What makes a story or a poem meaningful to you? This question is at the heart of our course, and we'll plot our course in search of its answer. In this course, we seek to understand our own unique ways of looking at the world, and how to give them artistic expression.
Academic Service
2017-present Faculty Advisor to Write on the DOT
2016-17 Started ESL Teachers Workshop to enhance group feeling and offer curriculum support among staff.
2014-16 Filmed annual Fun>Fear Halloween music video series with international students
2015 Created ESL library to make leveled English language reading materials accessible to students.
2010-12 Hispanic Writers Week assistant at UMass Boston
Workshops and Conferences
2018 Leader: Memoir and Personal Essay Writing Workshop at Egleston Public Library
2018 Presenter: Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology at UMass Boston, “3D Printing:
Language as Key”
2017 Leader: Staff Creative Writing Sessions at Boston Children’s Hospital
2017 Presenter: Brazilian Teachers Summit at UMB, “Using New Media and Creative Writing to teach ESL”
2015 Leader: SONAD Glen Brook Youth Writers Workshop; Harrisville, NH
2015 Presenter: “Words of Healing” Concurrent Session, Association of Pediatric Hematologic and Oncology
Nurses National Conference in Providence, RI
2013 Panelist: “Writing Outside the Classroom,” Assoc. of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, Boston
2012 Instructor: Writing for Children Workshop Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UMass Boston
2011-13 Write on the DOT co-creator, coordinator, and series emcee; Dorchester, MA
2008-09 Leader: Youth Creative Writing Workshops at 826Boston; Roxbury, MA
2008 Facilitator: Story of Stuff community workshops with Invested Citizens; Boston, MA and New York, NY
Community Engagement/Volunteer
2016-17 Team Walk Coordinator, Eversource Walk for Children; Boston, MA
2015 Mentor for the PresenTense Institute; Boston, MA
2011-13 Lead Coordinator for Write on the DOT; Dorchester, MA
2008-10 Muse & the Marketplace Volunteer, Grub Street; Boston, MA
2008 Memoir Project Intern, Grub Street; Jamaica Plain, MA
2008 The Dance Complex Volunteer; Cambridge, MA
2005 Tennis instructor and Play Tennis Day Coordinator at Raymond Recreation; Washington D.C.
Publications
Author
“Blizzard Poem,” Window Cat Press, 2018 and forthcoming in Welcome to the Neighborhood: An Anthology of American
Coexistence, Ohio University Press (Dec. 2019)
“After the Minneapolis Miracle: Have Vikings Fans Truly Won?” The Good Men Project, 2018
“Witness,” Story Showcase: Live at the Podcast Garage, 2017
“Are You My Uber?” McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 2016
“Hank vs. Henry: Howard Bryant’s The Last Hero,” The Good Men Project, 2014
“Dakota Falls and Other Stories,” UMass Boston MFA Thesis, 2013
“Interview with Adam Haslett,” The Breakwater Review, 2011
“Homerun Sports Stories,” Don’t Forget to Write: A Collection of Creative Writing from 826Boston, 2011
“In Webster’s,” Flashquake.com and The Inman Review, 2010
Wonder/Wander: 522 Days in Latin America, Self-published, 2009
Translator
“Cuerpo Público” (Public Body), by Mariela Cordero; Origins Journal, 2018
“Fragment 31” by Sappho; Write on the DOT: Volume II, 2013
“Samsara” by Alfredo Alegria; Write on the DOT: Volume I, 2012
Qhapaq Ñan: The Inka Path of Wisdom by Javier Lajo Lazo; Amaro Runa Press, 2007
Editor
Write on the DOT: Volume V (forthcoming May 2019)
In the Direction of Truth & Love: Memoir and Personal Essay, workshop chapbook, 2018
The Language of Illness (Volumes 1-3); UMass Boston, 2015, 2016, 2018
Write on the DOT: Volume IV, 2018
Chapbooks (various) of creative writing and translation by ESL students at UMass Boston, 2013-2018
Escribir Es Una Fiesta, Anthology of Student Writing from Hispanic Writers Week, 2010-2011
Write on the DOT: Volume II, 2012
The View From Here: Volume 2, Boston Children’s Hospital internal publication, 2011.
Write on the DOT: Volume 1, 2011
Grants/Awards
2018 Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Grant
2013 Creative writing award for outstanding achievement (UMB MFA program)
2013 Program of the Year award for Write on the DOT, UMass Boston Beacon Awards
2005 Georgia/Petworth Neighborhood Advisory Neighborhood Commission grant for Play Tennis Day
2005 Coca-Cola Foundation community grant for Play Tennis Day
2004 Polytropos Award from the Core Curriculum at BU
Residencies
2011-17 Writer in Residence, The Creative Arts Program at Boston Children’s Hospital
2011 Writer in Residence at Pearl Street Yoga Studio, Dorchester Arts Collaborative
Live Readings
2017 Unearthed Reading Series at home.stead café in Dorchester; It Can’t Happen Here Marathon
Resistance Reading (chapter 11 reader) at Brookline Booksmith (hosted by Apt literary journal).
2015 “A Night of Travel Stories” at Trident Bookseller & Café and Waterstone at Wellesley Authors Series
2014 Reading/performance of Wonder/Wander: 522 Days in Latin America at Dot2Dot Café
Other Work Experiences
2009-11 Server, Orinoco Kitchen (Brookline, South End)
2008 Community Director, Invested Citizens (Boston)
2008 Children’s Literature Anthologies Team, SABIS Educational Systems (Eden Prairie, MN)
2006-07 Various jobs while living abroad (Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina)
2006 Build Second Coordinator, KaBoom!: Play Matters for All Kids (various locations, U.S.)
2006 Server, Tryg’s restaurant (Minneapolis, MN)
2004-05 Behrend Builders Coordinator/AVODAH fellow, Jewish Community Center (Washington D.C.)
Languages
Spanish—can read, write, and speak fluently
Hebrew—can read
