Introducing Assistant Professor of Creative Writing & U.S. Literatures Dr. Caoimhe Harlock

Before joining the faculty at Hampshire, Caoimhe (pronounced kee-va) Harlock taught at Duke University and the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and at the community college level. She’s offered classes in creative and academic writing and a handful of literary seminars on topics such as women in horror. 
 
At Hampshire, her focus will be courses in fiction, where students of all experience levels can hone their craft in an inclusive and supportive workshop space. “My hope is that we can build a vibrant community of creative writers here who will share some really exciting and challenging work with the world,” Harlock says. “I’d love to offer some creative comics and graphic novel courses as well, for any students who are interested in trying their hand at that medium. I’ll also be offering seminar courses on American literature and its intersection with trans studies, feminist theory, queer theory, genre fiction, witchcraft and folk magic, and other topics.” 
 
Harlock has a Ph.D. in English from Duke University, with a certificate in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. She received an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and a B.A. from the University of Texas Austin, where she double-majored in English and philosophy. 
 
Have you been in any other professions that had an impact on how you teach and learn?
 
Before I found my way into education and started seeing some success as a writer, I worked a string of fairly diverse jobs: on an assembly line in a bleach factory, graveyard shift at a steam-and-flame factory, and ghostwriting books on bizarre topics — caring for Labradoodle puppies and growing succulents, for example. 
 
I’d like to think that I took away from all these diverse jobs an ability to listen to the people I’m in community with, to empathically understand their goals and fears and passions, and to be responsive to them in a way that helps them feel understood. Bringing those skills into the classroom is part of what has helped me foster the kind of inclusive and individually tailored learning environment that has made teaching so rewarding.

"Fundamentally, I’m passionate about stories — writing them, sharing them, helping others find and tell their own stories. That’s the thing that first made language a lifesaving force for me as a kid, and it’s the thing that keeps me excited about writing even now." 

What have you published?

I’ve published a lot of short stories and comics with various magazines and online publications. Some of the work I’m proudest of that’s currently out in the public is my story “Floodland,” published in the great San Francisco queer literary journal Foglifter, and my comic “Mothers,” published in Honey Literary. 
 
I’ve also got quite a bit of forthcoming work that I’m very excited about, chiefly my debut novel, which I’m in the final steps of editing, tentatively titled Take Up the Serpent. I’m also talking with a few publishers about putting together a book of comics, and I have plans to publish a nonfiction book of my academic research on American literature’s historical use of tropes of magic and monstrosity to represent gender-variant subjects. So, lots of beans in the hopper at the moment!
 
What are you passionate about when it comes to this work?
 
Fundamentally, I’m passionate about stories — writing them, sharing them, helping others find and tell their own stories. That’s the thing that first made language a lifesaving force for me as a kid, and it’s the thing that keeps me excited about writing even now. 
 
Teaching has been a great expression of this passion because so much of what we cover in the classroom comes back to stories: stories we tell about how the world works and should work, how the mind works, how people work, how art works. It’s deeply gratifying to introduce students to these stories, help them explore where they agree and disagree, help them identify what ignites their own interests and passions, and then work with them as they turn those passions into stories of their own. 
 
What are you looking forward to at Hampshire?
 
Getting to work with Hampshire students. In just the short time I spent with them during my campus visit, it was apparent that Hampshire attracts a special sort of soul: eager, curious, invested in not just learning but also using that learning to make a better world. 
 
As an educator, I couldn’t ask for a better situation. I’m especially looking forward to the kinds of working relationships that we’ll get to develop over the long term as I help guide students through Hampshire’s curricular model and see them develop their own independent projects. I’m eager to help these students get their stories out into the world in whatever way makes sense for them as individuals, and I just know they’re going to blow me away with their creativity and passion. 
 
How do you hope to engage with our curricular model?
 
Hampshire’s unique curricular model was one of the things that appealed to me most. Even when working at other institutions, I’ve always tried to develop courses with topics that intersect with urgent questions and challenges facing students, to allow students a great deal of freedom in developing projects for those classes, and to replace traditional grades with narrative feedback to the greatest extent possible. Now that I’m here at a place that actively supports my efforts to do all those things, I couldn’t be more excited. 
 
I’m hoping to offer courses in which we can have fun and do kooky things with art, but that will also go beyond teaching students the fundamentals of literary craft and analysis. I want my classes to help them discover the ways those skills can aid us in understanding the uncertain and often-perilous character of the world we live in right now, and even prepare us to engage with that world in a way that leaves it a little bit better off. I can’t think of a better place than Hampshire to do that.