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Francesca Lia Block

Antioch University
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Francesca Lia Block has published over 30 works of fiction, non-fiction, short stories, and poetry including the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement award-winning Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books and, most recently, the Joyce Carol Oates award nominee House of Hearts. She has also published various essays, interviews, and reviews and edits the Lit Angels monthly journal on Substack. Francesca was a finalist for Professor of the Year at the University of Redlands and currently teaches at UCLA Extension, St. Mary’s College of California, Pocket MFA, and privately.

francesca lia block

Affiliate Faculty

MFA in Creative Writing Program

[email protected]

Personal Website

When you work with me, I hope you will feel seen and supported but also challenged and encouraged to grow. I foster a nurturing environment where students can become more fully energized by the joy of the creative process.

As your mentor, I will encourage you to write, read, and analyze extensively. I will work closely with you on overall story structure and line-by-line details using Track Changes to give you my notes. Attention will be paid to characterization, plot, setting, and all aspects of voice. Annotations consist of three paragraphs–summary, craft element, and application in your own work. if you are writing a critical paper, I will help you find and prove your thesis. Most importantly, perhaps, I will help you uncover what it is you truly want to say to the world. I think my greatest strength as a teacher is getting to know my students on an individual basis (at the residency and during the term) and helping them dig deep into their psyches to bring out the story that is most relevant to them and, therefore, I truly believe, important for this wondrous and hurting world.

  • House of Hearts
  • The Thorn Necklace: Healing Through Writing and the Creative Process
  • Dead Girls: Poems
  • Beyond The Pale Motel
  • The Elementals
  • Quakeland
  • Necklace of Kisses
  • Teen Spirit
  • Love in The Time of Global Warming
  • The Island of Excess Love
  • Pink Smog
  • The Frenzy
  • Pretty Dead
  • Wasteland
  • Blood Roses
  • Nymph
  • Girl Goddess #9
  • Fairy Tales in Electri-city: Poems
  • Open Letter to Quiet Light: Poems
  • How to (Un)Cage a Girl: Poems
  • My Miserable Life
  • House of Dolls
  • Wood Nymph Seeks Centaur
  • Guarding The Moon
  • Echo
  • The Rose And The Beast
  • Violet And Claire
  • I Was A Teenage Fairy
  • Dangerous Angels
  • The Hanged Man
  • Weetzie Bat