Heidelberg University is a community, a family, comprised of as many personalities as there are people. With our “5 Things to Know” blog, you’ll get to know some of them. You’ll learn about their Heidelberg experience and other informative, fun – even quirky – anecdotes. Together, they tell the Heidelberg story.
Dr. Lucy Biederman joined the Heidelberg faculty in the fall of 2018 as an assistant professor of writing after teaching senior-level tech writing at Case Western Reserve. She was drawn to Heidelberg by the unusual writing curriculum that offers students the best of both worlds: the perfect mix of genres from creative writing and professional writing. “That’s so exciting to me,” she says. “Writing is as interesting and challenging and as smart as you are and as the world is.” She particularly enjoys teaching her Intro to Creative Writing courses where students blog about assignments, ideas and their lives, many exploring writing for self-expression for the first time. She finds that given some direction and opportunity, students are much stronger writers than they realize.
Advisor extraordinaire
Dr. Biederman also is the advisor for Morpheus, the on-campus creative writing magazine which is published twice annually.
Writers’ connection
She is the founder and coordinator of the Jean Warren Gekler Writer's Series, which brings published authors to campus to interact with students and share their works.
With pen in hand
She is an author herself, having published poetry, short stories, essays, chapbooks and the award-winning The Walmart Book of the Dead, which won the 2017 Vine Leaves Press Vignette Award and was a finalist for the Foreward Book of the Year.
Culture in Cleveland
Her husband is a classical guitarist who works with students in inner-city schools in Cleveland and also performs regionally with jazz and rock bands.
A hip commute
Behind the wheel of her “smart” car, she commutes daily to Heidelberg from her home in Oberlin, a nice, roughly equal distance between Heidelberg and Cleveland.