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College of Arts and Humanities

Carole Firstman

Lecturer

English

daisy1027@csufresno.edu

Education

  • MFA in Creative Writing, CSU Fresno
  • MA in Education, CSU Fresno
    • Reading/Language Arts Option
    • Reading Specialist Teaching Credential
  • BA in Liberal Studies, CSU Fresno
    • Multiple Subjects Teaching Credential, K-12
  • AA in Liberal Studies, College of the Sequoias

Courses Taught

English 20 – Introduction to Literature
English 30 – Readings in World Literature
English 44 – Creative Nonfiction Writing
English 117W – Writing from Children’s Literature
English 114 – Modern World Literature
English 160W – Writing Workshop
English 163 – Advanced Writing of Fiction
English 164 – Advanced Creative Nonfiction Writing
English 243 – Form and Theory of Fiction

Carole Firstman is an award-winning essayist, memoirist and journalist. Her book, Origins of the Universe and What It All Means: A Memoir, was a Paris Review Staff Pick and praised by The New York Times as “a strangely dazzling memoir.” Critics are calling it “pitch perfect,” “innovative,” and a “compelling narrative” of “rare quality.” Her shorter works have appeared in numerous places, including Colorado Review, South Dakota Review, Watershed Review, Defunct Magazine, Reed Magazine, Man in the Moon: Essays on Fathers and Fatherhood, Gannett Newspapers and McClatchy Newspapers. Among other honors, Firstman has been twice noted in Best American Essays, received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, and won the 2015 Dzanc Nonfiction Book Prize.

Before teaching at the college level, Carole taught elementary school for 20 years. She then worked as the executive director several non-profit arts organizations, including First Arts, The Tulare County Symphony, and the Arts Council of Tulare County. She currently teaches creative writing and literature at California State University, Fresno.