Teaching
Sands speaks to Gold Country Writers about useful strategies used by fiction writers and how they can be put to effective work in memoir:
Professor
Students in Sands’s classes have often remarked that her engagement with theatre—as actor, director, and playwright—allows her to offer useful perspectives when it come to the craft of writing. She lectures and teaches private workshops, and is Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing at Franklin & Marshall College, a small liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she is also the Founding Editor of the F&M Alumni Arts Review, a printed publication, with an online presence, devoted to the art and writing of F&M alumnae.
She is on the staff of the Community of Writers, and also teaches annually for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
Her book, Tools of the Writers Craft, essays on writing, with accompanying exercises, is available: click here
Sands is available as a writing coach.
Education
M.F.A. Fiction: Iowa Writer’s Workshop, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
M.F.A. Theatre Arts: University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
Advanced Training Program, Acting: A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theatre), San Francisco, California.
B.A. Drama (magna cum laude): University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California.
Work History
Franklin & Marshall College: 2008 – present
University of California, Davis Extension: 1998 – 2004
Iowa Summer Writing Festival: 1990 – present
Community of Writers at Squaw Valley: 1989 – present
Sierra Writer’s Workshop: 1993 – 1998
American River College: 1994 – 1998
University of Iowa Extension: 1990 – 1995
Honors
2001: “Excellence in Teaching and Outstanding Service in Continuing Education” University Extension, University of California, Davis
1998: May Martin Goyne Outstanding Woman in the Arts Award, for Literary Contributions.