Brooks, Carellin

I am a lecturer in the department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry. I have taught in WS since 2021 (pandemic times!), at first online and then, once students returned to class, in person. Before teaching in Forestry I taught in Women’s Studies (now the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice), Continuing Studies, the Department of English, and Arts Studies in Research and Writing. I have taught for 20 years at UBC, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Emily Carr University, Douglas College, and Fairleigh Dickinson University. I have published five books: Learned (2022), One Hundred Days of Rain (2015; French translation Cent Jours de Pluie, 2016), Fresh Hell: Motherhood in Pieces (2013), Wreck Beach (2007), and Every Inch a Woman (2005). In my spare time I sort-of love to bike to work (like, not the hill).

Teaching

I have taught at UBC since 2003, teaching courses including WRDS 150, ENGL 112, WMST 224, and Writing for Graduate Students.

The courses I currently teach at UBC are:

• NRES 150 – Scholarly Writing and Argumentation in Forestry
• FRST 544 – Technical Communications
• WOOD 225 – Communications Strategies

I am also a regular guest lecturer in:

• Wood Science Co-op

Educational Leadership

Each year I mentor between seven and eight TAs for a term or more: perfecting their feedback to students, building their academic careers with foundational skills, and improving their own writing. If your written English is impeccable and you are interested in TA’ing a writing or communications course, let’s talk!

Recently I have presented on visual syllabi in the faculty and to the wider university community, co-taught a workshop on mid-course feedback as part of a CTLT Institute, given a UBC contract faculty colloquium presentation on student experience surveys, and given a paper at the 2023 Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English (ACCUTE) on the meaning of hands in my most recent book of poetry, Learned.

Research

My PhD from Oxford University on the subject of the phallic woman in 20^th-century texts was published as an academic monograph by UBC Press, Every Inch a Woman (2007).

Current Creative Projects

Fire | Wood. In process. Mines my own family history to tell the story of a brother who perished in fire and the possibilities that died with him.

Raised by Wolves: An Autobiography with Animals. This completed manuscript tells the story, part realistic and part fabulous, of an adverse upbringing with a twist: many of the characters are little birds, meerkats, Russian wild dogs, young kangaroos, and other not-so-fabulous beasts.

Awards

Winner, ReLit Award for best independent press publication in Canada (novel category), 2017

Winner, Edmund White Award for Debut LGBT Fiction, Publishing Triangle, 2016