Interview with Ames Hawkins
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Description
Ames Hawkins (they/them) was born in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and grew up in the Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit. They are an English and Creative Writing professor at Columbia, having taught for 24 years, and at the time of this interview they held the title of Assistant Provost. In addition to teaching at Columbia College Chicago, they have also taught at Bowling Green State, University of Michigan, and Wayne State, where they acquired a Bachelor’s in American Culture, a Master’s in Popular Culture, and a PHD in English. Hawkins is an arts activist and a queer writer, authoring the book These Are Love(d) Letters, with their work frequently appearing in several LGBTQ focused collections of literature. They consider themselves a “trans elder” amongst many of their queer students. Currently, they are interim director of the creative writing department at Columbia, and they continue to teach queer literature, creative writing, and creative nonfiction. Length: 57:53 minutes. Transcript: 23 pages.
Publication Date
2022
Publisher
Columbia College Chicago
City
Chicago
Keywords
higher education, students, English, creative writing, queer literature, arts, activism, 1 Million Bones, Cradle Project, Chicago
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Education | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Midwa, Peter, "Interview with Ames Hawkins" (2022). College Oral Histories, 2022. 2.
https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/ohx2022/2
Comments
This interview was conducted by graduate student Peter Midwa, and is part of the Oral History of Columbia College Chicago project documenting the history of this Chicago, Illinois institution. The biography and interview abstract were composed by undergraduate student Sydney Shelly.