Faculty
Writing & Rhetoric (W&R) courses are taught by accomplished faculty members and instructors, including award-winning literary fiction and non-fiction writers, journalists, editors, poets, grammarians, research scholars, and educators. All use an interactive, small-group approach, fostering an inclusive and enriched learning environment for students.
Daniel Adleman
Program Director and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
I am the Writing & Rhetoric director and have an assistant professor in the program since 2017. Before that I worked primarily at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver while finishing my PhD in English language and literature at UBC. A lot of my work is situated at the intersection of rhetoric, media studies, and social change.
I’ve also worked as a freelance journalist and writing centre instructor. At the end of the day, I would characterize myself as a lifelong student. I continue to sit in on classes across the humanities and social sciences, and I bring a lot of that interdisciplinary enthusiasm to my classes.
2024-25 Courses:
WRR103H1: Introduction to Academic Writing
WRR201H1: Theories of Rhetoric: A Brief History of Persuasion
WRR303H1: Digital Rhetoric
WRR307H1: Rhetoric of Health and Medicine
WRR414H1: Writing for Social Change
My teaching and research
As a core faculty member in the Writing & Rhetoric Program, I teach a wide array of courses on rhetorical theories and practices.
Most of my research focuses on ways that rhetorical theory can inform media studies, literary studies, and philosophy. I’ve written a variety of academic journal articles, book chapters, and art criticism essays that explore rhetorical questions around politics, aesthetics, conspiracy theories, and television genres. I recently co-authored a book about rhetoric and psychology for Routledge.
My favourite writing
Of the novels I’ve read over the last couple of years, my favourites are Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts and Richard Powers’ Bewilderment. Each in its own way takes the reader on a gripping, psychologically-nuanced journey through a contemporary world replete with social entanglements, persuasive lures, and profound ethical consequences.
Contact
Daniel Adleman
Writing & Rhetoric Program Director and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
daniel.adleman@utoronto.ca
Kelli Deeth
Sessional Instructor
I teach WRR311: Seminar in Creative Writing-Fiction. As an instructor, I guide students toward becoming writers of multidimensional fiction. I work with students to help them view their fictional characters, worlds, images, and plots from all possible angles, so that the fiction they write is powerful and memorable. Another goal is to guide students toward becoming empathetic, thoughtful, and constructive editors.
My published books include The Girl Without Anyone (HarperCollins), which was chosen as one of The Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2001 and The Other Side of Youth (Arsenal), which was nominated for a 2013 relit award. I also publish stories and essays in journals such as Joyland, The Humber Literary Review, and The Literary Review of Canada. I am currently completing a novel and third collection of stories.
2024-25 Courses
WRR311Y1Y Seminar in Creative Writing
My teaching and research
As a teacher, I choose readings that, no matter the genre, explore what it means to be human and also demonstrate excellence in craft.
As a writer, I have a particular interest in how individuals exist within imperfect families and relationships. My fiction examines the complexities of marriage, yearning, friendship, and the uncertainties of adulthood. I’m interested in disconnections, missed connections, desire and loss.
My favourite writing
I especially love reading fiction that is striking in its originality and sincerity and that explores the pressure, pain, comedy, and longing that make up the universal human experience.
Sharon English
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
I’m an assistant professor in the teaching stream, and past director of the Writing & Rhetoric program, Innis One, and the Innis College Writing Centre. WRR311: Seminar in Creative Writing – Fiction reflects my passion for fiction writing and the short story form. I love working with students, watching the class become a community and creative hub.
As instructor, I nurture and model the rich, informative, dynamic, and supportive relationships between creators that are so essential to any sustained artistic practice.
My published books include the short story collections Uncomfortably Numb and Zero Gravity — a Globe and Mail Best 100 title of 2007, and long-listed for the Giller Prize — and my first novel, Night in the World, which was published May 2022. I’ve also published essays and stories in numerous journals, including Best Canadian Stories, Canadian Notes & Queries , and Dark Mountain in Britain.
Past courses
INI102H1: Telling the Stories of the City: Writing Creative Non-Fiction
WRR311H1: Seminar in Creative Writing
WRR315H1: Writing from Territory – Creative Writing in Fiction and Non-Fiction
My teaching and research
My teaching focus is on creative writing in its different forms. In addition to WRR311 and WRR315, I developed and taught Telling the Stories of the City – Introduction to Creative Nonfiction for the Innis One Program.
Writers shape our culture. My work emerges from a deep connection to the natural world and the crises of these times. In a culture beset by ecological and social upheaval, writers, especially young writers, have never been more needed.
Writing that engages the moral imagination; writing that bears witness to suffering and celebrates beauty; writing that emerges from deep scrutiny to speak difficult and necessary truths; writing that comes from walking outside and is written by hands that have touched and held soil; writing that discovers new stories to live by and reimagines old ones — this is the writing that can nourish us in these times.
My favourite writing
I tend to read nonfiction and fiction at the same time. The nonfiction that’s left the deepest impact on me recently is Derrick Jensen’s Bright Green Lies and the late Steven Heighton’s memoir about volunteering in a refugee camp, Reaching Mithymna. For fiction, I’m really enjoying the bold, creative approach of David Hubert’s stories, Chemical Valley.
Contact
Sharon English
Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream
sharon.english@utoronto.ca
Viktoria Jovanovic-Krstic
Sessional Instructor
I have been an instructor in the Writing & Rhetoric Program since 2006. I have an undergraduate degree in English and corporate communication and graduate degrees in linguistics and stylistics, which means that I am an avid wordsmith with a particular passion for language in use. I am also one of those people who reads multiple newspapers and who follows up on claims because I am interested in understanding the “full picture.”
In my free time, I binge-watch TV shows, am a fan of popular culture, love movies, and appreciate fine wine. When I finally grow up, I’ll probably be sitting at a café somewhere along the Champs-Élysées, nursing a café au lait and people watching.
You will find me to be personable, knowledgeable, and approachable; I have an interest in many topics and I am always keen to learn more. Most importantly, I value learning, so I am thrilled to learn with you.
2024-25 Courses
WRR104H1: Writing Reports
WRR300H1: Strategic Writing in Business and the Professions
WRR302H1: Writing in Business and the Professions for Rotman Commerce Students
My teaching and research
As a faculty member in the W&R Program, I teach a wide variety of courses, from our introductory course (WRR104H1) to a business communication course (WRR300H1), which is open to any student at U of T who is interested in developing their communication skills.
My research interests are varied, including the discourse of war, functional grammar, business communication, corporate communication, and academic writing, including essay and report writing.
As a functional grammarian, I am particularly interested in how people use all aspects of language to express attitude and engagement.
My favourite writing
I am an avid reader and a closet novelist. While I have no true preference regarding genre, I do appreciate a well-developed story, some humour to make me laugh, and smartly constructed sentences. If I could describe my perfect day, it would include a contemporary novel, a scenic beach-front view, and an ice-cold drink.
Contact
Viktoria Jovanovic-Krstic
Sessional Instructor
viktoria.jovanovic.krstic@utoronto.ca
Cynthia Messenger
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
I am an associate professor in the teaching stream and director of the Innis Writing Centre. I have been teaching various modes of writing at U of T for many years. I also have experience as a writing consultant in the professional workplace, including Ontario’s Office of the Lieutenant Governor. I received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for my work in that office. I spearheaded the Writing & Rhetoric Program in 2003, and was director until 2016.
I have developed courses on a range of subjects for the W&R program, including Rhetorical Analysis, Writing for the Professional Workplace, Essay Writing, Word and Image, and Visual Rhetoric.
2024-25 Courses
WRR103H1: Introduction to Academic Writing
WRR313H1: Visual Rhetoric
WRR317H1: Advanced Academic Writing
My teaching and research
In my courses, the readings and my lectures reflect my interest in fine art, the decorative arts, rhetoric, style, and belles lettres. Most of my courses feature at least one research-based assignment. The suggested reading and scholarly sources I provide are meant to encourage students to explore more deeply the wide-ranging fields of writing and rhetoric, including visual rhetoric.
I enjoy teaching courses such as WRR305: Word and Image, because students never fail to amaze me with their excellent analyses of poems about paintings (ekphrasis); wall text in museums; or satiric text on ceramic objects, to name only some of the topics students have chosen.
My current research focuses on the intersection between word and image, and on the visual rhetoric of the display of porcelain in paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
My favourite writing
Among my favourite scholarly articles is a series of three by Deborah L. Silverman: “Art Nouveau: Art of Darkness: African Lineages of Belgian Modernism, Parts I, II, and III,” published in 2012 in West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, published by University of Chicago Press.
Favourite books include Jean-Etienne Liotard: 1702-1789 by Christopher Baker; Writing for Art: the Aesthetics of Ekphrasis by Stephen Cheeke; Georgian London by John Summerson, and Caspar David Friedrich: Nature and the Self, by Nina Amstutz.
Contact
Cynthia Messenger
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
cynthia.messenger@utoronto.ca
Roz Spafford
Sessional Instructor
In addition to teaching creative writing for the Writing & Rhetoric Program, I teach creative writing in the summer session at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I taught for many years. I also instruct in the Health Sciences and New College Writing Centres — so I am tuned in to the wide variety of papers students need to write for other courses, and I understand how to respond to student writing on its own terms.
2024-25 Courses
WRR103H1: Introduction to Academic Writing
My teaching and research
WRR211: Introduction to Creative Writing is my favourite course of the many I have taught (journalism, academic writing, fiction, poetry, literary journalism), because students who have only written in their journals suddenly find themselves writing fully realized pieces. Also, students who think they can only write in one genre leap into new forms – and it is exhilarating to see their work grow and transform so quickly.
I write fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. My current research focuses on my memoir about growing up downwind from the Nevada Test Site, a large nuclear testing site in the Southwestern US. It is about land, losing land, family, the economics and environmental issues of ranching, the history of Indigenous and Spanish-speaking people of the area — and about radiation.
My favourite writing
I like to read a wide range of work by diverse authors, especially short stories, poems that are both lyrical and located in the ordinary world, high fantasy, post-apocalyptic speculative fiction, literary journalism that is historically grounded — and student writing.
Learn more about me
rozspafford.org
Contact
Roz Spafford
Sessional Instructor
roz.spafford@utoronto.ca
Rebecca Vogan
Sessional Instructor
I am an instructor in the Writing & Rhetoric Program, a writing instructor at the Innis College and University College Writing Centres, an instructor in the Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) publishing program, and a freelance editor. When I moved to Toronto to work in publishing, after my undergrad at Western, I discovered a world of people passionate about writing. Immediately, I felt at home.
After my first publishing job, I completed a master’s (Queen’s University), worked for the provincial government, and then launched a freelance career. When a colleague asked me to teach an editing course at George Brown College, I jumped at the chance. I’ve now taught editing for over 20 years, always with pleasure.
2024-25 Courses
WRR310H1: Stylistic Editing and Copy Editing
WRR316H1: Developmental and Substantive Editing
My teaching and research
I see editing as both an art and a craft, an intricate behind-the-scenes process that honours writers, serves readers, and enhances texts. When we understand this hidden process, we read every published piece differently — attuned to its complex backstory. In my courses, I hope to inspire you with this story and my enthusiasm. I also hope to teach you skills and strategies that you can use in university and beyond.
My favourite writing
For pleasure and escape, I read literary fiction. For fun and knowledge, I read (and collect) books on writing, revising, and editing.
Contact
Rebecca Vogan
Sessional Instructor
rebecca.vogan@utoronto.ca
Andrea Williams
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
I am an associate professor, teaching stream, in the Writing & Rhetoric Program and deputy director of U of T’s Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI). My PhD was in rhetoric and composition, and I have taught a wide variety of courses in the field since 1997. My current teaching and research interests include community-engaged writing, environmental writing, first-year writing, and the evolving role of generative AI in writing.
Past courses
INI196H1: Environmental Writing
WRR103H1: Introduction to Academic Writing
WRR308H1: Selected Topics in Writing and Rhetoric: Writing about Plants and the Environment
My teaching and research
I enjoy helping students successfully transition to university writing, in part because my own first-year essay writing experience at U of T was bumpy.
I was awarded the Arts & Science Outstanding Teaching Award in 2020. My teaching includes a lot of short, reflective writing, guided peer feedback, and close reading. I try to challenge my students to go beyond formulas, and let their purpose, audience, occasion, and context guide their writing.
Helping students recognize the power in writing, and finding their own way to write effectively, which includes persevering through difficulty, is deeply gratifying.
My research focuses on how students learn to write in different disciplines, and on how teaching assistants and faculty can become better teachers of writing. I am also interested in the role of language in social and political change (environmental and activist rhetorics), as I am an unapologetic idealist.
My favourite writing
I enjoy reading the long essays in The New Yorker, as well as the pithy pieces in The Economist, and anything about trees and plants. I find writing opinion pieces and book reviews, as well as articles about teaching, challenging and satisfying.
Contact
Andrea Williams
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
al.williams@utoronto.ca
Have questions about W&R?
Need more info? Want to discuss if a minor in the Writing & Rhetoric Program is right for you? Looking for help choosing courses? Rima Oassey, our Innis College academic program coordinator, can help!