Eileen G'Sell

Senior Lecturer in College Writing
MFA, Washington University in St. Louis
MA, University of Rochester
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    • College Writing Program
    • MSC 1096-153-122
    • Washington University
    • 1 Brookings Drive
    • St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
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    Eileen G’Sell received an MA from the University of Rochester and an MFA in creative writing from Washington University in St. Louis. Her cultural criticism, essays, and poetry can be found in Salon,  VICE, the Boston ReviewHyperallergicDAME, and DIAGRAM among others; and she was awarded the 2013 American Literary Review prize for poetry. Her chapbooks are available from Dancing Girl and BOAAT Press, and her debut poetry collection Life After Rugby is available from Gold Wake Press December of 2017. She currently teaches composition and film at Washington University, and creative writing for the Prison Education Project at Missouri Eastern Correctional Center. Also, Eileen G'Sell's first full-length collection of poetry, Life After Rugby, was published in early 2018 by Gold Wake Press.

    Featured Courses

    College Writing: Power & Commodity Culture

    "Commodity culture" refers to what aspects of culture can be evaluated in terms of supposed "worth" or economic value. Readings will explore a range of cultural texts and topics--whether it’s the popularity of Grey Poupon in hip hop or racial tension in the St. Louis restaurant scene, the role of smartphones and social media in the rise of self-branding, or the blurred line between high art and Instagram.

    Life After Rugby

    Life After Rugby

    "I take deep pleasure in these poems, wishing to park in front of them--sexy and larger than life as they are--with my feet up and a big bowl of popcorn." In a collection peppered with odes to films and stars, an elegy for Whitney Houston, and more than a few surprises, Eileen G'Sell gives us more than a little 'history, hilarity, the strewn blooms of rhyme.' Settle in, my friends. You are in for a treat." --D.A. Powell

    Portrait of My Ex With Giant Burrito

    Portrait of My Ex With Giant Burrito

    “The long-waylaid fairy godmother of sycophants and sad men, bossy girls and scrappy children has come at last around the mountain of disinherited All-American dreams. We didn’t know to hope she’d be hilarious. Or, that Sappho and Amy Schumer, James Tate and Whoopi Goldberg would be riding her white horses pouring yolky shots of sunrise G’Sell is daring us to take.”
    —Amy Wright

    Euphoria Takes One for the Team

    Euphoria Takes One for the Team

    Chapbook published in 2013 by Dancing Girl Press