- Home
- Academics
- Our Faculty
- Catina Bacote
Assistant Professor
M.F.A., 2014, The University of Iowa, Nonfiction WritingM.A., 1997, Columbia University, English EducationB.A., 1994 Wesleyan University, Sociology, African-American Studies
Catina Bacote joined the faculty at St. John’s in the fall of 2018. She specializes in creative nonfiction, and her work draws on personal and social history. Her current research investigates the consequences of economic oppression and residential segregation, and her book project chronicles the lasting impact of the illegal drug trade on families and communities. Her essays have been published in Ploughshares, Tin House, Gettysburg Review, TriQuarterly, The Common, The Sun, Southern California Review, Gulf Coast, December Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Kweli Journal, and the anthology This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press, 2017). She is a 2021-2022 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and has been a Writer-in-Residence at the MacDowell Colony where she received the Ann Cox Chambers Long-form Journalism Fellowship, the Ragdale Foundation where she received the Alice Judson Hayes Social Justice Fellowship, Hedgebrook, Headlands Center for the Arts, The Millay Colony, Willapa Bay, Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Previous to working at St. John’s, she taught at The University of Iowa and Warren Wilson College.
“Eighty-Three Questions about the Death of De’Shon Wilson: An Ongoing Investigation.” Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature of Fine Arts, Online Exclusive, Summer/Fall 2020
“A World of Tangled Vines, Falling Berries, Bruised Grapes, Rough Rinds, and Ripening Flesh.” Prairie Schooner, Volume 94, No. 3, Fall 2020
“What A Human Needs.” Kweli Journal, August 31, 2020
“Up North.” December Magazine, Volume 30.1, Spring/Summer 2019
“The Other America.” Ploughshares, February 2018
“We Carried Ourselves Like Villagers.” This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home anthology (Seal Press, November 2017), edited by Margot Case Kahn and Kelly McMasters
“We Carried Ourselves Like Villagers.” Tin House reprint, November 28, 2017
“Writing into the World: Memoir, History and Private Life,” TriQuarterly, Issue 148, Summer/Fall 2015
“Hope.” The Gettysburg Review, Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 2014
“Fear.” The Southern California Review, Volume VII, 2014
“In Court.” The Common, October 2013
“Teaching Banished.” Facing History and Ourselves Publication, 2009
“Coming Back.” The Sun, Issue 369, September 2006
“Kickboxing, Self-Defense for Your Soul.” Heart & Soul, 2001
“The Ideal Man.” All the Man I Need: Black Women’s Loving Expressions on The Men They Desire anthology (Gateway Publishers, 1999), edited by Anaezi Modu and Andrea Walker
“The Artist and Her Angels.” Hearts of Glass anthology (The National Library of Poetry, 1998), edited by Richard Schaub
“A Higher Being.” Trace: Transcultural Styles + Ideas, Issue #3, March 1997
Presentations
Invited Lecturer, “Follow Your Questions,” The New School, Writing the Essay: Critical Inquiry Course, March 3, 2021
Invited Lecturer, “Personal Narrative and Family History,” Western Washington University, January 26, 2021
Invited Lecturer, “The Art and Craft of Research in Personal Narrative,” Grub Street Memoir Incubator Program, November 30, 2020
Invited Lecturer, “Reimaging Public and Private Life,” The University of Chicago, Creative Nonfiction Workshop, May 7, 2020
Panelist, “The Safe Space of the Essay: Navigating Student Pain on the Page,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, March 6, 2020
Invited Lecturer, “Dismantling the Single Story,” Yale University, The Racial Imaginary Course, November 12, 2019
Invited Lecturer, “The Art and Craft of Research in Personal Narrative,” Grub Street Memoir Incubator Program, September 19, 2019
Invited Lecturer, “Writing as Social Action,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Introduction to Creative Nonfiction, April 3, 2019
Reader, The Yale University Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, December 10, 2019
The New School M.F.A Reading Series, April 17, 2019
Presenter, “Out Of Our Time: Writing Dissent in Creative Nonfiction,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, March 2019
Moderator and Presenter, “‘Come Celebrate With Me’: Women of Color Writers and
Literary Lineage,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, March 2019
Invited Lecturer, “The Politics of the Personal Essay,” Narrative Arc: Shaping Your Story Course, GrubStreet, December 10, 2018
Presenter, “Mapping and Remapping Nonfiction,” The Bedell Nonfiction Now Conference, November 2018
Reader, This Is The Place: Women Writing About Home, Flatiron Writers Room, April 29, 2018
Invited Lecturer, Reimaging Private and Public History Through Literary Nonfiction, Flatiron Writers Room Course, April 29, 2018
Reader, This Is The Place: Women Writing About Home, Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, March 2018
Moderator and Presenter, “From Thesis To Published Book,” Association of Writers and
Writing Programs Conference, March 2018
Invited Lecturer, “The Art of the Personal Essay,” M.F.A Writing Workshop, Virginia Commonwealth University, November 13, 2017
Presenter, “The Multi-Headed Beast: Challenging Genre in Creative Nonfiction,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, February 2017
Reader, Homecoming at Warren Wilson College, October 2016
Reader, Wesleyan Writers Conference, Faculty and Teaching Fellow Series, June 2016
Invited Lecturer, “The Art and Craft of Personal Narrative,” The Art of the Dispatch Course, University of North Carolina’s Great Smokies Writing Program, October 2016
Moderator and Presenter, “Women Writers Confront Violence and Its Aftermath,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, March 2016
Presenter, “Writing About Other(ed) Spaces,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, March 2016
Presenter, “Writers of Dissent,” The Bedell Nonfiction Now Conference, October 2015
Reader, Warren Wilson College, New Faculty Series, September 2015
Presenter, “Writing into The World: Memoir, History and Private Life,” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, Spring 2015
Invited Lecturer, “The Art and Craft of Personal Narrative,” Advanced Writing in African American Autobiography and Biography, The University of Michigan, September 15, 2014
Reader, Speakeasy Nonfiction Series, The University of Iowa, April 2014, November 2012, October 2011
Presenter, “Social Justice and Art,” The University of Iowa Jakobsen Graduate Conference, March 2014
Reader, The Anthology Series, The University of Iowa, December 2013, May 2012
Panel Chair and Presenter, “Writers Transforming Moral and Ethical Concerns into Art,” The University of Iowa World Languages Conference, April 2013
Reader, New York State Summer Writer’s Institute Fellowship Series, July 2012
Presenter, “How Collaboration Changes Our Practice,” The Bedell Nonfiction Now Conference in Melbourne, Australia, November 2012
Featured Educator, “Tools for Schools.” Public Broadcasting Television, March 2002
Presenter, “Creating Personalized and Rigorous Schools.” The Institute for Research and Reform in Education, Tom Rivers, New Jersey, 1998-2000
Undergraduate:
Writing as Social Action
Introduction to Creative Writing
Introduction to Creative Nonfiction
Advanced Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Literary Journalism
Literature in a Global Context: Place, Power, and Belonging
Graduate:
Writing for Social Justice
Writers of Witness