Growing up in Abingdon, Va., Erin Harte kept busy – reading books and playing in the high school band. She loved literature. She loved music.
At 29, living in Brooklyn, N.Y., she loves both, still.
Harte graduated from Abingdon High School in 1999.
Then she went to Emory – but, no, not Emory & Henry College, just up the road from Abingdon.
Harte, instead, went to Atlanta, Ga., and graduated – Summa Cum Laude – from Emory University with a bachelor of arts in creative writing. Now she has been inducted into the Fulbright program, one of the most prestigious awards programs worldwide, operating in more than 155 countries.
As of 2010, about 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists have participated in this program. Candidates recommended for Fulbright programs are people with outstanding achievements in their fields. Harte, for one, is on her way in the program, starting this weekend.
"I’m going to be a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Morocco for 10 months starting Sept. 5," she said. "I’ll be posted in El Jadida at Université Chouaïb Doukkali in the Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines."
That’s not all. "I’m hoping – as a side project – to help develop an English writing and tutoring center for kids," she said. "And I’m really excited to learn a few new languages. While I speak Italian decently, I don’t speak a lick of Moroccan Arabic [Darija] or Modern Standard Arabic, for that matter."
Back in Brooklyn, Harte has been brushing up on her foreign language skills.
"French is widely spoken in Morocco, too, so I’m trying to learn that now," she said.
Harte applied for the Fulbright grant through Brooklyn College, where she earned a Master’s in Fine Arts in creative writing in 2008.
"I studied fiction," she said. "And while I was there, I was also the editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn Review, a literary journal started under the direction of Allen Ginsberg. Also, while I was there, I was a recipient of both the Ross Feld Prize for Creative Writing and the Himan Brown Award for Creative Writing."
All those awards grew from a longtime interest in the written word.
"Before I got to Brooklyn College, I was working for the Scholastic Book Clubs division of Scholastic Inc. in the Product Development department," Harte said.
Then she made a life decision. "I left Scholastic halfway through my grad program so I could teach and edit the journal."
Since graduation, Harte has taught English Composition at Brooklyn College and Medgar Evers College. She has also taught Remedial English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.
"And, of course, I write fiction," she said. "I’m working on my first novel. I also freelance write, edit and engage in occasional publishing consulting. My fiction has been published in Her Circle Ezine, and my nonfiction has appeared in Pomp and Circumstance and Brainworld."
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