Faculty Profile: Sara Erdmann, Writing Workshop

Writing can be a tricky thing to do, but ASP employs six writing teachers to help their students improve their creative writing. One of the Writing Workshop teachers, Sara Erdmann, a New Hampshire native knew she wanted to be a writer since childhood.  Sara has worked at ASP for five summers now and has no plans to stop.

As a little girl, Sara read, Mole and Mouse Clean House, all by herself and she fell in love with writing. “I thought reading this on my own was the coolest thing I ever did.” This love for writing stayed with her all the way to college where she majored in Creative Writing with a minor in French.  Interestingly, to continue exposing herself to French, Sara keeps her phone and computer in French. Sara went to Hamilton College and spent a semester in Senegal, West Africa, where she lived in villages and had a great time. Her first job after college was being a Preschool teacher.        

Sara heard about the ASP program through a friend from her masters program at UNH who interviewed Sara for her dissertation. One of her favorite parts about teaching here is working with an intern. She said that “not only do you get to teach students, but you get to have this mentor relationship with someone who usually wants to be a teacher… and this is the only place where you get to have a co-teacher and that's part of what makes it so special for me”.

Not only does Sara love teaching writing, but she loves writing herself.  Outside of teaching she enjoys writing fiction whether it a short story or a novel. Right now she is working on getting her dissertation published for her PhD.  When she is not writing she enjoys reading while she is at ASP or going out to eat with other teachers. She said “ we like to avoid the dining hall and all different ways we can find of doing that”.  She also loves to watch movies with Marisa, another writing workshop teacher at ASP.  With her family being close, she enjoys having them visit during the summer.

Sara’s favorite author Alex Monroe won the Nobel Prize this year. Sara was ecstatic that she won. Her friends knew that she loved this author and were calling her congratulating her because her favorite author won the Nobel Prize, which Sara thought was funny.  

Sara enjoys teaching outside of ASP but spends her year looking forward to teaching at ASP.