Burke Nixon has been a core lecturer in the Program in Writing and Communication since 2014. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Mississippi, where he was a John and Renee Grisham Fellow in Fiction, and his B.A. in English from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a 2021 recipient of Rice’s George R. Brown Teaching Award, and his first-year writing courses focus on topics such as the personal essay and the link between empathy and reading fiction. His essays, book reviews, and short fiction have appeared in The American Scholar, Commonweal, and The Austin Chronicle, among other publications. Before joining the Program in Writing and Communication, he taught first-year writing at the University of West Georgia. A native Houstonian, he began his teaching career at the high-school level in HISD as a Teach for America corps member, as well as in the Intensive English Program at Houston Community College. In addition to his work with the PWC, he also teaches humanities and communication courses to medical students as an instructor at Baylor College of Medicine and has taught in Rice’s Master of Liberal Studies Program at the Glassock School of Continuing Studies.

Mailbox: MS-625