Rachel Jamison Webster
Professor of Instruction
- r-webster@northwestern.edu
- 847-491-0894
- University Hall 027
- Office Hours: TBA
Biography
Rachel Jamison Webster is the author of the books, ‘The Sea Came Up & Drowned’ (Raw Books 2020); 'Mary is a River' (Kelsey Books 2018), which was a finalist for the National Poetry Series in 2014; 'September’(TriQuarterly 2013); and the cross-genre volume, 'The Endless Unbegun' (Twelve Winters 2015). She has also published two chapbooks with Dancing Girl Press, 'The Blue Grotto' and 'Hazel & The Mirror.’ Her poems, essays and stories appear in many journals and anthologies, including The Yale Review, Poetry; Tin House, The Southern Review; Prairie Schooner; The Paris Review and now Parahelion.
Rachel graduated from the Warren Wilson MFA Program in 2004 and has taught at Northwestern since 2005, beginning as an Artist-in-Residence, continuing as Assistant and then Associate Professor of Instruction, and serving as the Director of Creative Writing from 2015-2018. She has received several awards, including an Academy of American Poets Young Poets Prize; an Outstanding Emerging Artist Award from the Poetry Foundation; an American Association of University Women Award; and, in 2018, an Alumni Teaching Award from the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences for excellence in teaching. In 2018, Rachel received a Hewlett Grant for her development of diversities and social inequalities curriculum for Creative Writing majors.
From 1999 to 2005, Rachel worked with First Lady of Chicago Maggie Daley as her writer and advisor, helping to create literary arts apprenticeships for thousands of city teens. In this capacity, Rachel edited two anthologies of writing by Chicago youth, Alchemy (2001) and Paper Atrium (2005). Rachel delights in the symbiosis between teaching and writing, and considers it her calling to guide students through the reading and creation of excellent literature.
Specializations
Poetry & Poetics, Creative Writing
Books
