Margaret Lazarus Dean

Margaret Lazarus Dean is associate professor of English at UT, where she teaches fiction writing and creative nonfiction writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Her research interests include contemporary fiction, contemporary creative nonfiction, creative writing pedagogy, gender studies, literature of disaster, and literature of spaceflight.

Professor Dean is the author of two books. The first, a novel, (The Time It Takes to Fall, Simon & Schuster, 2007) is set near Cape Canaveral and follows a fictional NASA family through the aftermath of the Challenger disaster. The second, a book-length work of creative nonfiction, documents the final year of the space shuttle program (Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight, Graywolf Press, 2015).

She is a recipient of the John C. Hodges Assistant Professor Teaching Award, a National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship, a Hopwood Award for the novel, and a Tennessee Arts Commission fellowship.

Professor Dean earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wellesley College and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan.