Robert Long Foreman
Academic Background
Ph.D. University of Missouri
M.A. Ohio University
B.A. West Virginia University
My primary areas of interest include fiction and creative nonfiction, which I write, publish, and teach in workshops.
When I teach workshops I am mindful of the reality that the creative writing classroom is a brief stop on the long path any writer takes to one of many possible destinations. I try, therefore, to keep the long view in mind. While giving craft lessons and leading discussions of the work of students and published authors, I ensure that we not lose sight of the larger questions that any serious writer should address, such as, why do we write? And, what are we looking for in an audience? My hope is that we can address these questions thoughtfully, and thereby better understand the roles that literary writing and reading play in our lives and in the lives of others.
My most recently finished project is
I Stand Accused, a satirical novel that adopts the form of a memoir by a professional baseball player who is awaiting trial for the murder of one of his teammates. Convinced he can write the book that will save his life, he tells the story of his friend’s death and his own life in an effort to exonerate himself before the public. As we are informed, however, in a Foreword by his coauthor, the athlete/author’s trial has already taken place, and he has been found guilty and executed. In the hands of his coauthor, then, the novel becomes something more than a failed attempt by a fool to fool the public, as the coauthor fact-checks the athlete’s story and investigates his past, while also accounting for his own reluctant involvement in the project. With a brash narrator, and his circumspect apologist, whose voice is relegated to footnotes, the novel is something like a rendition of
Moby-Dick in which Ahab tells the story and Ishmael provides what mitigating commentary he can in the margins.
I have been teaching at Rhode Island College since 2012. I have directed several honors projects and graduate theses since arriving here from Missouri, a place that feels as if it is farther away from here than it is. I read as much as I can.
When I am not teaching, I am arguing with a toddler.
Courses Taught
First Year Seminar 100: The Living and the Dead
English 201: Introduction to Literary Study I
English 220: Introduction to Creative Writing
English 329: Contemporary American Fiction
English 371: Advanced Fiction Workshop
English 373: Advanced Nonfiction Workshop
English 581: Graduate Prose Workshop
Selected Publications
Fiction
“Vonwürdig.”
Booth.
http://booth.butler.edu/2014/10/31/vonwurdig/
“Appraisals.”
Hobart.
http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/appraisals
“The Man with the Nightmare Gun.”
Willow Springs 72
http://willowsprings.ewu.edu/authors/foreman.php
Nonfiction
“Guts.”
The Cossack Review.
http://www.thecossackreview.com/issue02/contributors/robert_long_foreman.html
“The Most Lifelike Thing in the Room.”
Michigan Quarterly Rerview.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=mqr;c=mqr;c=mqrarchive;idno=act2080.0049.204;rgn=main;view=text;xc=1;g=mqrg
