Dave joined Walker’s in 2018 from Florida State University where he was completing his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and teaching English. He has enjoyed teaching for the past 11 years at the university level but was thrilled to join Walker’s where he spends more time focused on teaching and getting to know his students. A published poet, Dave earned a B.S. in English, summa cum laude, from Weber State University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The University of Idaho. Dave is passionate about community partnerships and is the director of Walker’s Community Partnerships program.

What is your favorite part of the subject(s) you teach now?

I love teaching all kinds of writing, and I love witnessing students learn to adapt and employ all kinds of writing, too. It’s a demystification process: students often begin with the feeling that academic essays, or poetry, or proposals are beyond their understanding or capacities, and then we work from inside out to identify and use the parts and pieces that make a text do what it does. It takes iteration and effort of course, but students learn that, too.

What is your favorite Walker’s tradition?

My favorite Walker’s tradition is a relatively new one — the Visiting Writer Seminar. We’ll be celebrating the seminar’s fifth year in 2021-22, and it gives students at Walker’s an utterly unique educational experience — to study one living female writer’s works in depth, and then to host that writer for a week of master classes and community events. Students get the benefits that come from prolonged, deep investment in one writer’s works and also an up-close example of a woman navigating a career and life. Students are always inspired.

Please list any notable publications on which you are author or co-author:

Poem: “Thanks in Florida” (Orion Magazine)

Poem: “When I Tell the Story of the Time Our Undocumented Neighbors Called 911 for Us” (Tin House)

Do you have a professional website?

www.dmthacker.com