Scott Wolven

Scott Wolven is the author of Controlled Burn (Scribner). Wolven’s stories have appeared seven years in a row in The Best American Mystery Stories Series (Houghton Mifflin). The title story from Controlled Burn has been selected to appear in The Best American Noir Of The Century (Houghton Mifflin), edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. Wolven’s novels False Hope and King Zero are forthcoming from Harcourt. He is finishing another collection of short stories. Wolven's work was featured at 2010 Festival America in Vincennes, France, in Vintage America (Albin Michel), with the French photographer Patricia de Gorostarzu and a preface by Clint Eastwood's son, Kyle. He has been a visiting writer at Binghamton (SUNY), Indiana University (East) and The University of Chicago.

Selected Publications:

Controlled Burn: Stories of Prison, Crime, and Men (Scribner 2005)

Teaching Philosophy:

Writing, first and foremost, consists of the act itself. In the doing is the learning. And part of writing is re-writing - there are useful tools of the craft that writers can learn and put in their personal "toolbox." I teach by using specific examples of work written by established writers and I teach by tailoring my approach and the use of example and metaphor to the specific student I'm mentoring. To try to meet them wherever they are in their own writing journey. The syntax, grammar, and construction of fiction, at the sentence level, is always of the utmost importance and is dealt with in every instructional circumstance. From short stories to novels to comics, we'll cover the wide range of popular fiction.

Students can expect to be encouraged to write as much as they are capable of and that I will comment on everything they send me. My response time on packets is a week or less, regardless of page count. As soon as I receive a packet, students can expect a detailed mentor phone call from me within the next 48 hours. I send packets back Priority Mail the next day and email the student the tracking numbers. Students can expect both broad issue and sentence level comments on their work. I am always open to discussing larger projects and am equally willing to read outlines and synopsis. I am well-read and if a student has a particular author that they would like to discuss that I have not read, I am happy to make sure I read the material prior to our next discussion. Student success is very important to me. I am open to discussing all aspects of the writing process. I am on email daily.

I expect my students to work hard and be open to learning. I expect them to ask questions and to bring their best material to the table for discussion. In my book, effort counts. The old Samuel Beckett adage of Fail, fail again, fail better may have truth in it, but I'd like to think all of us collectively are trying to brighten that a little here at Stonecoast.