Meg Files

Armed with a vision, award-winning writer/poet Meg Files has made Pima Community College the go-to place for writers. At West Campus, she oversees 17 creative writing courses and a growing journalism curriculum. In 1988, Files inaugurated the annual Pima Writers' Workshop; now nationally known, it drew 300 students this year. In 2001, she developed the pioneering weekend writers' workshops, where working professionals teach different facets of writing. "They're enormously popular," she says. "I don't know of anyone else who is doing this."

The secret to Files' dramatic success is clear: "The atmosphere I've really worked to cultivate is rigorous and challenging, yet supportive and non-competitive," she says. "Students need to take risks with the material and voice and technique. If they're writing nothing but safe little poems and stories, they're not going to grow as writers."

• B.A. and M.A. in English, University of Illinois
• Publications: books, poetry, short fiction, non-fiction. Due out in 2005: A Hollow, Muscular Organ (Story Line Press); Lasting: Poems on Aging (Pima Press), anthology edited by Files. Numerous awards; nominated for National Book Critics Circle Award and twice for the Pushcart Prize.
• On Pima Community College faculty: 1987 ff. Outstanding Faculty award, 1994. Carnegie Mellon Excellence in Teaching, 1998.
• Previous teaching positions include the University of Maryland Asian Division (Guam and Japan); Ohio State University, Colorado Mountain College.
• Favorite activity: scuba diving

June 2005