Spring Break
Muschell passes love for writing to students
Wes Schobel
Issue date: 2/7/03 Section: Campus News
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Muschell, associate professor of english, speech and journalism, brought his excitement for writing to GC&SU in the fall of 1990. Although he has been successful writing in several genres, he was drawn to writing plays by the instant gratification of a live audience.
"When you're sitting in a theatre and you're watching the audience reacting to the actors doing your play, you really get a sense that you might have really moved somebody or made them laugh or had them think about something that you wanted to try to provoke their minds to think about," said Muschell. "You get to actually see them react in the moment so it's really different. It's a good feeling when it all works and what you try to say seems to come through in the audience's expressions or applause - their silence when you hope they are going to be really intense or their laughter when you want them to laugh. You hope they laugh at the right place! It's a good feeling to move people with your thoughts. Playwriting is so different then any other kind of writing."
His passion for creative writing has made a great impression on his students.
"I really enjoyed David Muschell's (Intro to Creative Writing) class for several reasons," said junior Emily Cole. "David teaches the class with an enthusiasm that is tangible with an open forum class. Sometimes we would get a little off task, yet he realizes that writing is all about being off task. I am planning on taking another one of his classes which deals in writing drama."
"His class had energy," said sophomore Jonathan Lay. "Everybody had something to say and the workshop atmosphere was wonderful."
Muschell sees teaching as an opportunity to make a difference in the
lives of young writers.
"It's not that I'm going to touch every student, but when you do touch one you feel like something's really happening, that they've been moved by something or they've really had an experience," said Muschell.
"Education is not necessarily all just books. It's really sometimes having an experience. Our creative writing class was really fun because of the interaction of all the people and their thoughts and the freedom. There was really good academic freedom in there with people being able to disagree with each other and not necessarily get angry with each other, but seriously disagree about important issues. That's really enjoyable, when you see people's minds working like that."
