BFA, MFA, PhD
Instructor, Engl, Creative Writing Conv
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
School of Humanities
School of Humanities - English
604.986.1911 ext. 3677
Fir Building, room FR404
leahbailly@capilanou.ca
Education
PhD, Creative Writing & Literature, University of Southern California, 2019
MFA, Creative Writing, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2010
BFA, Writing, University of Victoria, 2004
Bio
Leah Bailly (PhD, University of Southern California, 2019) is a writer, scholar and facilitator who currently teaches writing and literature at Capilano University. She has won honours from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Alberta Literary Awards, Summer Literary Seminars, Graywolf Press, The Banff Centre, Breadloaf and Yaddo.
Bailly holds creative writing degrees from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was Deputy Editor of the literary journal Witness and the University of Victoria, where she was a fiction editor at The Malahat Review.
Most recently, Bailly completed a PhD in Creative Writing & Literature at the University of Southern California, where she was the Wallis Annenberg Fellow in fiction. At USC, Bailly served as Editor in Chief of Gold Line Press, and fiction editor at Ricochet Editions.
After living abroad for ten years, including time in the United States, Scotland, France, Asia, Africa and Central America, Leah has returned to enjoy Vancouver with her family.
In my experience, my best tool as a professor is to listen to students and to become attuned to the cultural flashpoints that resonate through their lives and scholarly interests. As an academic, I teach toward critical analysis followed by a measured, thoughtful response.
As a writer and teacher of the arts, I work hard to foster creativity, collaboration and empathy in students work. I strive for a learning environment based on trust, where students feel free to develop new ideas and where they focus these ideas in an organized, coherent way.
My area of research focuses on the ways that literature intersects with technology and communications.
My scholarly work focuses on utopia and digital-age literature, in particular, the effects the Network Society has on forms of speculative fiction.
My creative work takes the form of long and short-form narrative as well as creative nonfiction and essay.
Virginia C Piper Center for Creative Writing, Teaching Fellowship, 2019
Final Year Fellowship, USC Graduate School, 2018
Annenberg Fellowship, University of Southern California, 2012-2017
James Lougheed Award for Excellence, Province of Alberta, 2016
Edward E Moses Award for Creative Writing, 2015
Graywolf Prize for Best Novel Excerpt, 2013
Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Individual Artist Development Grant, 2012
Arts Graduate Award, Province of Alberta, 2010
Amber Bowerman Travel Writing Award, Alberta Literary Awards, 2009
Professor of the Year, UNLV Greek Society, 2008