Richard Duggin
- Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Mentor
- UNO Professor Emeritus
- MFA in Writing
Additional Information
Biography
RICHARD DUGGIN was raised in New England where he received his bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of New Hampshire. He earned his MFA degree from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and he has taught fiction writing at the University of Nebraska Omaha for fifty-five years. During that time he founded the UNO Writer’s Workshop BFA degree program in creative writing, and the UNO MFA in Writing Program. His published work includes the novels The Music Box Treaty, Woman Refusing To Leave, a collection short fiction, Why Won’t You Talk To Me?, as well as short stories which have appeared in such periodicals as American Literary Journal, Beloit Fiction Journal, Laurel Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Sun, Playboy, and elsewhere. His work has been cited by Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Anthology, and Playboy Magazine Best Fiction. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Merit Awards, and artists residencies at Ragdale, Yaddo, and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
Teaching Philosophy
"Stories live inside your mind. The careful craft of writing fiction gives stories an external life so others may experience them as well. To accomplish this, a fiction writer pays attention to even the smallest matters of technique with the same care for the details of construction that any artist pays in wedding form with function. While the rudiments of craft can be learned in a group setting, such as a campus classroom, students of writing are better served learning their craft if they study one-on-one with a mentor who is a published writer and a teacher with experience they can tap into. My approach to teaching fiction is to determine where my students are in their understanding of the fundamental elements of a good story, and coaching them to get where they need to be. As a teacher, I persistently remind my students that fictions are carefully shaped artful objects appealing to the eyes and senses of the reader. Good stories have their own existence beyond the pens of their authors. Find the right form and the subject takes on life of its own. Find the proper narrative voice—the most advantageous point of view—and the lives of the characters are brought to light, so that even their most mystical or magical incarnations become real as flesh to a reader."
