Debra Busman

Teaching Areas

Creative Writing and Social Action; American Literature; Composition and Critical Thinking; Service Learning; Media Studies; Women's Studies. Courses taught: HCOM 211, HCOM 211S, HCOM 230, HCOM 307S, HCOM 327, HCOM 330, HCOM 331, HCOM 333, HCOM 339S

Research Interests:

Creative Writing and Social Action; Contemporary Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry; Social Justice Pedagogy and Practice; Education, Not Incarceration; Service Learning; First Generation College Students; Critical Race Theory

University and Community Interests:

Director Creative Writing and Social Action Program, HCOM; Coordinator of Service Learning, HCOM; Leadership Team, HCOM; Member AWP (Associated Writers and Writing Programs), NCBI (National Coalition Building Institute), NAACP, ACLU; Advisory Board Member for The Village Project, Seaside, CA; Faculty advisor for NAACP campus chapter, Rhythmic Flow Hip Hop Club, Earnest Scribblers.

Recent Publications

"White Privilege: Moving Beyond Guilt into Responsibility and Action," Challenging Inequalities: Readings in Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration, ed. Hortencia Jimenez, Cognella Academic Publishing, 2018

“Silences and Stories: Honoring Voice and Agency in the College Classroom,” Ways of Being in Teaching: Conversations and Reflections, eds. Wiebe, Lyle, Wright, Dark, McLarnon and Day, Sense Publishers, 2017

“You Gotta Be Ready for Some Serious Truth to be Spoken,” Talking Back and Lookin Forward: An Educational Revolution in Poetry and Prose, eds. Gorski, Salcedo, Landsman, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016

like a woman, a novel. (Dzanc Books, March 2015).

“When The Killers Are White: White Violence/White Silence,” and “You Gotta Be Ready” (excerpts) in Combined Destinies: Whites Share Grief About Racism, ed. Ann Todd Jealous, Caroline Haskell, (Potomoc Books Press, Feb. 2013).

"like a woman/pigs and donuts," short story in Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape, ed. Keenan Norris, (Scarecrow Press, 2013).

Fire & Ink: An Anthology of Social Justice Writing, co-edited with Diana Garcia, Frances Payne Adler (University of Arizona Press, 2009). Project co-initiator, co-author, co-editor. [Co-authored: “Preface: What Is Social Action Writing?” and chapter introductions; authored: “You Gotta Be Ready for Some Serious Truth to Be Spoken;” “like a woman;” “Like The Wind;”]

“like a woman,” short story in The Los Angeles Review: Number 4 – 2007 (Red Hen Press, Los Angeles, 2007)

“Of Species, Class, and Gender,” poem in The Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets, ed. Ryan Masters, (Chatoyant Press, 2004)

“You Gotta Be Ready For Some Serious Truth to be Spoken,” essay in Social Justice: Special Edition: New Pedagogies for Social Change, (UC Berkeley, 2003)

“The Ground We Stand Upon: Interrogations of Privilege and Resistance – Opening Speech – Writers for Mumia.” Feminists on the Edge: Stories of Courage & Connection, A Multicultural Feminist Literary Journal, ed. Ellen Correa, Spring 2001

“Like the Wind,” short story in 580 Split: A Journal of Literature and the Arts, Oakland, 1999

"Representations of Working Class 'Intelligence': Fiction by Jack London, Agnes Smedley, and Valerie Miner, and New Scholarship by Carol Whitehill and Janet Zandy," essay. Women's Studies Quarterly: -- Special Issue:Working Class Lives and Cultures. Spring/Summer 1998, 75-92