Bethany Schultz Hurst

Biography

I often identify myself in relation to the West, having grown up and lived in the Rocky Mountain region for most of my life. Idaho has been my home since I started teaching at ISU in 2003. This geography shows up in my creative work, as I explore issues connected to identity and home within the context of the American West. More specifically, my poetry is driven by these questions: If the boundary between the domestic and wild is uncertain, then where/what can we as humans claim home? If we do make a claim, how much responsibility do we take for the problematic history that allows us to stake our claim? In the classroom, I think of myself as both a writer and a teacher of writing; these roles should ideally be synchronous. Whether I'm teaching creative writing or composition, I seek to position myself in the classroom as a fellow writer. I experience the same writing struggles, challenges, and triumphs as my students. My teaching philosophy centers on connecting individuals to larger writing communities; I aim to provide students with both the private space and the community interaction necessary to the writing process. To aid students in seeing themselves as writers within a community, I encourage students to spend time developing relationships with their texts and to take ownership over their classroom roles. Writing communities should extend beyond the classroom, as well, and much of my service work seeks to provide access to literary/creative writing experiences through organizing public literary readings and activities and hosting visiting writers.

Research Interest

Creative Writing