Greg Gildersleeve

Greg Gildersleeve teaches composition and GED writing at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS. He holds an M.A. in English (Professional Writing) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a B.A. in English from Missouri Western State University. He previously taught at MWSU and is a teacher consultant for the Prairie Lands branch of the Natiional Writing Project.

His particular writing interests include argumentative essays, comic book writing, screenwriting, and fiction.

Greg self-published a comic book, Gold Dust, in 2005, and wrote comics stories for an anthology, Show and Tell. He also wrote a scholarly article for a book, Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes, published by Sequart in 2008. Greg has also conducted comics writing workshops through the Raytown Missouri School District and the Kansas City-based Comics Creators Network.

In addition to academic and comics writing, Greg has been published by rock music's Relix Magazine, on the official website of the group Jefferson Airplane, and in the Mansfield (TX) News-Mirror, all displaying his love for writing rock bios.

As a teacher of writing, Greg passionately believes in the words of teacher Anne Rodier that writing "allows one to shape one's life and change one's world," and also in writer Anne Lamott's assertion that "good writing is about telling the truth." He encourages students to explore their worlds and the truth through the vehicle of writing.

Sources:

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Pantheon, 1995. 3

Rodier, Anne, "A Cure for Writer's Block: Writing for Real Audiences." Breakthroughs: Classroom Discoveries about Teaching Writing. Berkeley: National Writing Project, 2001. 121