Derek Dirckx
Instructor
MFA, University of New Orleans
ddirck1@lsu.edu
223-A Allen Hall
Biography
Derek Dirckx is a writer and English instructor at Louisiana State University. Originally from Minnesota, he earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans in 2025. While at UNO, he taught freshman composition and received the Distinguished Graduate Instructor award, as well as the Johanna Leake Thesis Prize. At LSU, he teaches composition, creative writing, and literature courses, with a special focus on fostering both creative and critical thinking in students. His instructional methods seek to strike a balance between free-ranging, inquisitive class discussions and the development of practical tools to prepare students for upper-level college courses. His own writing focuses on rural spaces, the subjective experience of political realities, and the messy quest for meaning in the modern world. His work has appeared in The Baltimore Review and elsewhere.
Area(s) of Interest
Fiction Theory; Political Literature; Post-Modernism vs. Modernism; Experimental Fiction; Workshop Instruction; Political Rhetoric; Ethics of AI Composition; Research Methods