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Ted OConnell

English And Literature

English & Literature: Instructor

Office: L-301Q on the Mount Vernon campus

Phone: (360) 416.7963

Email: Ted.Oconnell@skagit.edu


Photo of Ted O'Connell

Ted O'Connell

I am the author of K: A Novel, appearing in May 2020 from Santa Fe Writers Project. Details here: https://www.writerted.com/. I grew up just north of Chicago and went to college at DePauw University, where I discovered that I liked college so much I wanted to make a career of it. I earned a B.A. in English Composition and promptly took my credentials to the Davis Street Fish Market, where I shucked oysters for two years before attending the Oregon Program in Creative Writing, which was then known for conferring MFA degrees on shuckers of all kinds. Since then, I’ve managed to publish a number of short stories in literary journals like Black Warrior Review and Northwest Review, and I was fortunate to win the Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction in 2008, but my list of rejections is at least 20 times longer than my list of publications.

I play in two bands, the Americana duo The Scarlet Locomotive, http://www.scarletlocomotive.com, and the bluegrass group The Prozac Mountain Boys, for whom I am first mandolinist.

Spanish is my second language. Latino issues are a big interest of mine. Chinese would be my third language if I only had more time or an amazing brain, for I discovered that a year in Beijing as an exchange teacher is not enough time to be fluent in Mandarin.

 Other interests include cedar trees, the Chicago Bears, the American Bison, the North Cascades National Park, and anything my daughter likes.

 I have been a teacher at Skagit since 1999 because I think the place rocks.