Pedro Ponce
Assistant Professor of English

Pedro Ponce joined the faculty in the fall of 2003, following the completion of his PhD in fiction at the University of Denver . He also earned degrees from Western Michigan University (MFA), Johns Hopkins University (MA) and Williams College (BA). His interests as a writer and scholar include narrative theory and the theory of history of different genres in fiction. He teaches Techniques of Fiction and Advanced Fiction Writing and will teach 20th Century American Literature in the spring.

Ponce was awarded a Tara Fellowship for Short Fiction by the Heekin Group Foundation, a nonprofit literary organization. It is awarded to projects by unpublished writers or those who are beginning their careers. He also won the 2001 Tattered Cover Fiction Prize from the English department at the University of Denver .

His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, The Beacon Best of 2001, Double Room, Minima, Gargoyle, Alaska Quarterly Review and Quick Fiction . For Humanities, the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities, he has written articles on jazz, photographer Edward Curtis, scholars' efforts to save Sephardic Spanish, post-World War II aesthetics, the American "voice" of honky-tonk music, scholarly work on the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and how the Depression is taught in schools.

“At St. Lawrence, I see a serious commitment to helping students understand the connections between different disciplines,” Ponce says. “The further we get into this complex Information Age, the more important it will be to discern connections that are easily overlooked and question those we take for granted. That's the essence of teaching students to teach themselves.”

Ponce adds that his favorite thing about being at St. Lawrence is that “The interdisciplinary interests I see in my students are the same that I see among the faculty. For writers, anything can be a source of influence or inspiration. I really enjoy having so many colleagues in other disciplines to share ideas with.”