Barbara Baig

Barbara Baig is a writer whose passion is teaching writing. She created the position of Writing Instructor at The Divinity School at Harvard University, where she taught for two decades; she's also taught at other colleges and adult learning centers in the Boston area. She now teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lesley University, one of the top-rated low-residency programs in the country, and for the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She offers free writing lessons at www.WhereWritersLearn.com.

Barbara's approach to teaching is based on the principles of expertise training used by top athletes and musicians (and showcased in bestsellers like "Outliers" and "Talent is Overrated"). Scientific researchers in the field of expertise studies have demonstrated, over and over again, that excellence in any field is not the result of innate talent; it's the result of great coaching and dedication to practice. Barbara delights in showing aspiring and struggling writers how to move towards mastery by practicing skills.

Barbara's first book, "How to be a Writer: building your creative skills with practice and play," was published in 2010 by Writer's Digest, and she has written articles on writing for The Writer magazine and Maine in Print, among others. She's also written award-winning poems and songs, fiction, and radio scripts (for the PRI program "Sound & Spirit").