Writing

A Life in Language

Personal essays, reflections, and the scholarship of a lifetime spent with books and the people who love them

Personal Essays

From the Page

Personal narratives drawn from a life spent reading, teaching, and living fully — from the mountains of north Georgia to the villages of Fiji.

FEB

Living by the Book

It is ironic that, of all my projects in Naqelewai, the primary school library is my lasting legacy. When the school was being rebuilt, the headmaster requested a library. He set aside the space in…

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Academic & Professional Publications

Scholarly Work

Peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and professional contributions spanning composition pedagogy, mentorship, and rhetoric.

Better Learning Through Plastic?: The Moby-Duck Saga and Pedagogy

2023

Scholarly Contribution · 2023 Better Learning through Plastic? The Moby-Duck Saga and Pedagogy Chapter 14 in Plastics, Environment, Culture, and the Politics of Waste Author Donna A. Gessell…

Mentoring: A Rewarding Relationship

2019

Academic Leadership · Faculty Development Mentoring: A Rewarding Relationship Donna A. Gessell, Ph.D. · UNG Center for Teaching, Learning & Leadership · 2019 ← Back to Writing Academic Leadership…

An Unwanted education, Detoxifyingly Satisfying

2019

Donna Gessell reviews Kat Meads's Miss Jane: The Lost Years — a fierce, chorus-narrated campus novel about power, predation, and the education no one asks for. Published in North Carolina Literary…

What's in Your Writing Tacklebox?

2015

Academic Publication · Chapter Contribution What's in Your Writing Tacklebox? Donna A. Gessell, Ph.D. · University of North Georgia Press · 2015 ← Back to Writing Contributor · pp. 44–54 Assistant…

Reading Flannery O'Connor with Buddah Eyes

2011

Academic Publication · Literary Criticism Reading Flannery O’Connor with Buddha Eyes Donna A. Gessell, Ph.D. · Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction · 2011 ← Back to Writing Peer-Reviewed Article…