John Ryan Hrebik

John Hrebik

Dr. John Ryan Hrebik is a writing professor, lyric poet, and drummer/musician. He holds a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, as well as an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Chatham University. John’s writing style combines the lyric quality of Anna Akhmatova with the stoic sensibility of Jane Kenyon. His poems traverse the motifs of the father-son relationship and the inner psyche, blurring the boundaries between the universal and the person. In addition to writing poetry, John has taught composition at the university level for over six years. His emancipatory teaching style encourages students to use their own inimitable experiences to shape and construct new knowledge when crafting both creative and academic texts. It is his innovative music-based approach to teaching first-year writers that makes his classroom such a unique learning environment. In particular, John uses songwriting as a model for college-level writing in order to position his students within a familiar atmosphere. When he is not teaching writing or crafting poetry, John plays drums for a local rock band (Mile Post 6) and a country artist based out of Nashville, Tennessee. He currently resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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