A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Jill Riddell

Associate Professor, Adjunct

Contact

Bio

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Writing (1999). BA, 1983, Northwestern University. Podcast: The Shape of the World Show. Publications: City Creatures; Trop; Chicago Reader; Chicago Magazine. Awards: Audubon Award for excellence in environmental reporting.

Personal Statement

I write stories, essays, and articles, and I collaborate on museum exhibitions and audio podcasts. Currently, I'm writing an ongoing, serialized novel for the West Coast literary website, Trop Magazine, and I'm working on a nonfiction book about my quest to find a species of plant or animal never seen before. I've been the vice president of a natural history museum, the co-host of a podcast on green living, and a newspaper columnist. I have a small urban farm in Chicago with apple trees, vegetables, and honeybees.

Current Interests

I write essays and stories, and I also make audio pieces. I'm the host of The Shape of the World, a podcast about cities, nature and people. I collaborate on museum exhibitions and other multimedia art projects. Currently, I'm working on a nonfiction book about my quest to find a species of plant or animal never seen before. I've been the vice president of a natural history museum and a newspaper columnist. I have a small urban farm in Chicago with apple trees, vegetables, and honeybees. I serve on the City of Chicago Mayor's Nature & Wildlife Committee.

 

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

In Exploring the Margins: Edges and Alleys, students learn to study what lies outside the center of cultural attention, developing a practice of inquiry grounded in curiosity, rigor, and imaginative focus. By undertaking new experiences and utilizing research skills, students will develop illuminating and surprising ways of uncovering the overlooked. This is a cross-genre course with a fiction and non-fiction emphasis. We will read the work of both ancient and contemporary observers and study their processes of research and creative experimentation. Students will generate new writing or deepen an existing project by expanding their focus beyond the obvious¿by learning to see and study what others might not. This class is a chance to cultivate transferable skills such as observation, ideation, critical analysis, and contextual research, and its topics and assignments will prepare the class¿s participants to be nimble thinkers who are well-positioned for future work in writing, cultural production, and creative leadership.

Class Number

2012

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1268

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

2005

Credits

3