Laura Apol

Laura Apol’s areas of specialization are children’s and adolescent literature, literary theory, gender studies, and creative writing. Her research on historical children’s literature has appeared in Children’s Literature, The Children’s Literature Association Quarterly and The Lion and the Unicorn; her work on the pedagogy of children’s literature and the intersection between children’s literature and literary theory is published in The New Advocate, English Journal, The Journal of Children’s Literature, The Journal of Literacy Research, and The ALAN Review. Her articles on the history of poetry for children and research on the teaching of poetry to preservice teachers have appeared in English Education and as book chapters (including The Handbook for Children’s and Young Adult Literature); and her articles on facilitating creative writing in classrooms have appeared in English Journal, English Quarterly, and Language Arts.

Dr. Apol is the co-author of a collection of William Stafford’s poetry for young readers (Learning to Live in the World: Earth Poems by William Stafford, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1995, Winner of a Hungry Mind Books of Distinction Award). Her own poetry has been published in two full-length collections, Falling Into Grace (Dordt College Press, 1998), and Crossing the Ladder of Sun (Michigan State University Press, 2004, Winner of Oklahoma Book Award). Her poetry also appears in numerous poetry anthologies and literary journals (including The Hudson Review, Sistersong, and NewPlains Review). She has recently completed her third full-length collection, Requiem, Rwanda (Michigan State University Press, in press), drawn from her work in Rwanda using writing to facilitate healing among survivors of the 1994 genocide, along with a novel-in-poems for adolescents, entitled Tutsi.