Teaching

McConnell at the Granfalllon Conference, Bloomington, IN, 2019

Forthcoming Class July 29–Aug 2, 2024, 9am–12pm:   “The Big Click:  How to Shape a Story” at Castle Hill, Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, MA Register at https://www.castlehill.org/writing

“Teaching, may I say, is the noblest profession of all in a democracy.” -Kurt Vonnegut

Suzanne McConnell taught writing and literature at Hunter College for thirty years (1983-2012) and was the Scholar/Facilitator for the Literature and Medicine program at the VA of New Jersey and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey for nine (2009-2016). A veteran teacher and coach, she has taught at six universities, in an after school program for children, an Upward Bound program for teen-agers, at a spa, an arts facility, hospitals, and in private workshops.

  • August 8-12, 2022:  “The Big Click:  How to Shape a Story,” a one-week class on plot, using the practices in Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style by Kurt Vonnegut and Suzanne McConnell.   Castle Hill, Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, MA  
  • July 20th, 2021 Workshop: “Write Like a Human Being. Write Like a Writer,” Vonnegut Museum and Library, part of of a workshop series on Vonnegut and the environment

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  • “Suzanne’s a genius at getting the best out of all of us. Her classes are the reason I managed to finish a book.”- Anita Naughton, writer, Tea & Sympathy, Putnum Adult: 2002
  • “My special thanks to Suzanne McConnell, who teaches fiction at Hunter College in New York City. She took a great interest in my manuscript, and we spent many hours discussing it together.” – Fara Krasnopolsky, I Remember, The Women’s Press, LTD & Houghton Mifflin Co., Clarion: 1996
  • “McConnell knows both how to help fire up the artist and discipline the writer.” – Jay Greenfield, author of Max’s Diamond, Chickadee Prince Books, 2016. 
  • “It’s rare to find a gifted writer-teacher who cares intensely about the person and the work.”- Noah Levin, painter/textile designer
  • “A workshop atmosphere that really works” – Risa Denenberg, medical writer, practitioner