I am a writing teacher, poet, and pop culture critic. On campus, I am the faculty
advisor for Gesture, ODU's literary magazine, and always seeking students who are
interested in submitting work for publication, or organizers and editors to join the
staff. I teach first-year writing and creative writing courses, most recently, ENG
326, The Art of the Essay. Using writing as a means of creative and personal expression
is central to any class you'll take with me: I am interested in voice and helping
students find their voices as tools of expression, even in scholarly genres of academic
writing.
In a Dr. D class, you're a "Writer" first and foremost!
As an Expressivist scholar, my research interests center on the intersection of composition
pedagogies and creative writing instructional practices. I am also interested in reflection,
multimodal composition, and currently working on a project tying the scholarship of
Thomas Merton to our own Dominican Pillars. I am a true teacher at heart, so my research
often stays in the realm of the classroom. I was recently awarded an OhioLINK Affordable
Learning Course Redesign grant to develop free-to-students learning materials for
first-year writing courses.
During former lives in Detroit and San Francisco, I have done youth arts education
programs, have been a barista and a chef, and even once ran twenty miles. At home,
I have two miniature dachshunds named Desi & Poppy, and a beautiful son, Benjamin.
In my office, I have a theatrical-sized poster to the 1996 cinema masterpiece Twister
and a library of board and card games. Come visit, we can spin a record, play cards,
and talk about writing!
Creative
"All I Know of Coal", poem, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, 2022
"Aria for Poland Woods", poem, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, 2022
Cincinnati Style Chili, poem, [autofocus], 2022
Billy Joel's The Stranger, creative non-fiction, Sixtyeight2ohfive: A Playlist Project,
2020
Scholarly
DeGenaro, Anthony and Lena Hakim. “Storytelling in First-Year Writing.” Open Words:
Access and English Studies, 15.1 (2023): 95-117.
DeGenaro, Anthony. "Supporting Audience Awareness in Multimodal Text Creation," Journal
of Response to Writing, 9.2 (2023): 127-139.
Book Review of: G. Mazzoni, On Modern Poetry, translated by Zakiya Hanafi (Belknap
Press, 2022) in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: 47.1.
Book Review of: Y. Cleary, The Profession and Practice of Technical Communication
(New York: Routledge, 2022) in Communication Design Quarterly 11.1 (2022): 53 – 54.
DeGenaro, Anthony, William DeGenaro and Jerrice Donelson. “It’s Essentially Writers
Talking about Writing”: The Roles of Reflection in a Co-Curricular Writing Studio
Course.” Open Words: Access and English Studies, 11.1 (2018) 82 – 101.
