Meet Deirdre Fagan

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Deirdre Fagan.

Hi Deirdre, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a writer, professor, widow, wife, and mother of two. I studied literature and philosophy in graduate school, earning my Doctor of Arts from the University of Albany, SUNY, in 2000. I then spent the first decade of my career as a professor writing literary criticism, including my first book, an encyclopedic volume, Critical Companion to Robert Frost (Facts on File, 2007).

Shortly before that book was published, I lost the last two members of my birth family–my father and middle brother–having more than a decade before lost my mother and eldest brother. I was thirty-six and had been married five years to the love of my life, Bob, and had a two-year-old son. It was an incredibly devastating and challenging time as I continued to teach my classes, raise my son, love my husband, and manage my grief and my father’s and brother’s affairs. When I was finally able to turn to writing again, I found myself writing poems and short stories expressing the losses of my life through a created assembly of characters and speakers.

During this first creative time, I had another child, a daughter. When she was only four, we lost her father, my husband Bob, to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) in a brief ten months after his diagnosis. When I could write yet again several years later, I wrote more poems and stories that expressed love and loss. Then, I found myself writing a memoir about the love Bob and I had shared, the life we had embraced while we could, and the selflessness Bob exhibited in encouraging me to go on and love and marry again.

Seven years, a new professorship in Michigan, and a new marriage to my husband Dave later, my first chapbook of poetry, Have Love (Finishing Line Press, 2019), and a collection of short stories, The Grief Eater (Adelaide Books, 2020), were published. Then, in 2022, my memoir about Bob, Find a Place for Me: Embracing Love and Life in the Face of Death (Regal House), appeared, soon followed by a collection of poetry, Phantom Limbs (Finishing Line Press, 2023).

Writing has become a way to express all I have learned about trauma, loss, and love in the hope that writing openly and honestly will help others. My literary training provided the foundation I continue to build upon, now in writing a second memoir about my childhood and adolescence.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The greatest challenges of my life have largely had to do with the life struggles of illness and unexpected losses. Life is a series of hills and valleys. I have learned to be most grateful for the hills and to brace myself for the valleys. I have been determined to have a full life–a rewarding marriage, lovely children, a great career, and time to create and travel.

This means that some challenges have simply been juggling it all, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I want to model for my children how they can have full and rewarding lives. My losses have broken me and made me stronger, but most of all, they have taught me to seize the day. Knowing how short life can be has made me very careful with how I spend the limited time I–we all–have.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I have been a university professor for twenty-seven years and have now had five books published. I have taught in five different states and earned tenure at two different universities. I am now a full professor at Ferris State University where I am also the coordinator of creative writing and assistant department chair in the English, Literature, and World Languages Department.

I am most proud of the students I have taught and mentored and urged to surpass me, my ability to apply all I know about writing and literature to writing in a wide variety of genres, the publication of my books, and the success of those that have won or been a finalist for awards. Find a Place for Me is a National Indie Excellence, Living Now, and Readers’ Favorite award winner, a Book Excellence, American Writing Awards, American Bookfest “Best Book” finalist, and a Shelf Unbound Indie Notable 100. The Grief Eater is an Eric Hoffer and Indie Best Book Awards finalist.

To discover that the work I have done in the classroom and outside of it has touched students and public lives is the most rewarding of all.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Just keep writing. Writing is where I challenge myself to continue to refine my work, grow, and adapt. Publication is a tough business- one of the toughest- and it requires vulnerability and strength. Public rewards are often small and come very late in the process. Writing is a consistent demonstration of perseverance and discipline combined with a whole lot of hope.

What I have learned is that if you keep writing, keep learning, listen to criticism, and apply it, and then keep writing and keep learning, your words will find their readers. I have been writing something weekly since college. Each time I write, I refine and develop my thinking, my ability to express it in words and meet my audience. Just keep writing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.deirdrefagan.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deirdre_fagan/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeirdreFaganDr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deirdre-fagan-09434137/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/drdeirdrefagan
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfw13NKDheoJvSdl0RjKYfg

Image Credits
Jennifer Johnson, Shelley Stevens