faculty
Caitlin Amaral she/her
Associate Teaching Professor
English & Communication
Contact
508-999-8393
dpofjmAvnbtte/fev
Liberal Arts 303
Education
1995 | Columbia University | MFA |
1993 | Tufts University | BA |
Teaching
Programs
Programs
Teaching
Courses
An exploration of the problems and principles of such feature story modes as profiles, how-to articles, narrative adventures, humor, news features, investigative reporting, interpretive and analytic reporting, opinion columns, and editorials.
Exploration of the forms of fiction and how a writer's creative choices with regard to form determine characterization, dialogue, plot, and narration. Assignments will include writing various creative pieces. Forms include, but are not limited to, the paragraph, the short story, the novella, and the novel.
Internship opportunities in the public and private sector. Students will augment their internship with on campus seminar meetings and assignments designed to integrate the student's real-world experience with the academic discipline. Typical internships are with organizations in publishing, government, media, journalism, software, public relations, and a variety of public and non-profit areas.
Research
Research interests
- Journalism
- Creative Writing
- Media
- Communications
Select publications
- Caitlin O'Neil Amaral (2023).
My daughter didn’t belong. I worried I’d failed her (Commentary)
WBUR Cognoscenti, 1. - Caitlin O'Neil Amaral (2023).
The Immersion Class (Fiction)
Massachusetts Review, Vol. 64, Issue 2, 150.
Caitlin O'Neil came to UMass Dartmouth in Fall 2009. She teaches journalism and creative writing. She is the advisor to the student newspaper, The Torch, and the campus literary magazine, Temper. In addition, she is the director of The Student Media Collaborative, an independent, student-centered media initiative that works with community partners such as the New Bedford Light, WCAI, and The Public’s Radio (TPR) to create publication, internship, and mentorship opportunities for students.
Prior to joining the UMassD faculty full-time, she taught as a senior lecturer at Suffolk University. Prior to teaching, Caitlin was an award-winning writer and producer for WGBH Interactive in Boston, working on well-known PBS programs such as American Experience, Masterpiece Theatre, Mystery, Antiques Roadshow, and This Old House.
Her freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Standard Times, Publishers Weekly, Budget Travel, and Poets & Writers magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Indiana Review, Tampa Review, the Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, The Masters Review, and Calyx and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She won the Tampa Review’s Danahy Prize, the Ninth Letter Prize in Fiction, the Women Who Write International Short Prose Contest, and received a Massachusetts Cultural Council individual artist grant. She has had residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and MassMOCA. She is a current BookEnds Fellow at Stony Brook University.