This interview is with Elizabeth (Betsy) Davis, Lecturer Emerita in the University Writing Program. She came to UC Davis in 1981 and retired in 2008. Before coming to the Davis campus, she worked as a reporter for the Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, and later, as a staff writer for Jet Magazine in Chicago.
Betsy has taught courses ranging from freshman basic skills to advanced composition and writing in the professions (journalism, education, sociology). She also taught courses in The Short Story, the Literature of California, British Romanticism, and The English Novel in the English Department. At UC Berkeley she has taught workshops on Fiction and on Creative Non-fiction.
Betsy is also an accomplished fiction writer, essayist, poet, and reviewer. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Malahat Review, Primavera, The Short Story Review, The Journal of the West, The San Francisco Chronicle, Writing on the Edge, and Christianity and Literature. She received a Writer-in-Residence appointment at Cottages at Hedgebrook, Langley, WA.
She also developed and directed the Summer Institute of the Literature of Northern California, an award-winning program, sponsored by UCD Summer Sessions. Dr. Davis received the Academic Federation Excellence in Teaching Award, June 2008.
She continues to teach UC Davis summer classes and, during the academic year, serves as a writer-coach with the WriterCoach Connection, an organization devoted to students' success in writing.
Betsy is interviewed by her friend and colleague, Aliki Dragona, Faculty Director of Academic Programs, Global Learning Hub, Global Affairs, and Continuing Lecturer in the University Writing Program.
