Creative Writing Program Alumnus Thomas Price
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Thomas Price started his undergraduate degree at Pasadena City College where he received the Joyce W. Wiler Award in Creative Writing. He earned his BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from UCLA, where he was the recipient of the 2013 Shirley Collier Prize. Currently, Thomas is in New Orleans after completing his MFA at the University of New Orleans where he served as associate fiction editor at Bayou Magazine, and was an assistant editor at UNO Press. His fiction has appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, The Barcelona Review, and The Los Angeles Review, among others.
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How did PCC's English and Creative Writing Program Prepare You?
PCC's creative writing program helped me get past that crippling fear of writing. I took three writing courses, composition and creative, with Dr. Ogden, and in each, we were required to keep a freewriting journal. After one and a half years of freewriting, I discovered that sitting down to write was much easier. (Although it is and will always be a struggle.) It wasn't until I transferred to finish my Bachelors and then, surprisingly, also in my MFA, that I was shocked to see people struggling with this same issue. I've always felt like I've had a leg up in this area. I still suggest to other writers that they give freewriting a try, when they complain about struggle to write. The ability to ignore the editor has made me far more prolific than I would have been, and the foundation of examining my authentic voice proved so valuable in my three years of graduate school, because so much of the work at that level requires intense focus and consideration of yourself as a writer and the intention and goal of your work.