Professor Lauren Osborn in her office, Breidenbaugh 314G. (Photos William Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
By Ella Prieto, Editor-in-Chief
Growing up in Mississippi and Alabama, Gettysburg College is the farthest north Lauren Osborn has ever lived. But when the Emerging Writer Lecturer position for the 2025-26 academic year opened here, she jumped at the chance to join academia as a faculty member.
“I love academia; the environment of it is really lovely,” expressed Osborn.
This love shines through in her experience, accomplishing an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a Master of Fine Arts from Queens University of Charlotte and a PhD from Oklahoma State University with no breaks in between. Now, however, she is excited to work with students while continuing her craft, and has found Gettysburg to be a great place to do so.
In her one-year position, she is teaching Intro to Creative Writing classes and one class per semester that is completely her own. The first, running this semester, is titled “Stranger than Fiction: The Slipstream Dream.” The course focuses on the term “slipstream” coined by Bruce Sterling in 1989, to describe writing “which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility.” Students’ exploration of such writing works to inspire their own odd stories.
“I love weird fiction,” explained Osborn. “Real life bores me. Anything that surprises me and takes me out of an element of reality, I tend to be drawn towards. Since those are my favorite books to read, I love breaking apart what makes writing weird, and the craft of how the author achieves making people feel strange, which is usually done through very specific elements.”
Many of her favorite authors have this component of “weird” or “strange” fiction, such as Aimee Bender, Kevin Brockmeier and Joy Williams. Their works center around magical realism and lyricsism, which draw readers into their worlds.
Her other class, “A Bug’s Life: The Etymology of Entomology,” was born from Osborn’s love of insects, including her 17 pet tarantulas. In her PhD program, she also studied under an entomologist as part of her concentration. In this experience, she saw the connections between creative writing and science, even using scientific articles as inspiration for her work.
“Everything is a narrative. A science article is a narrative with a lot of super fancy language, but at the end of the day, still a narrative,” stated Osborn.
Professor Lauren Osborn in her office,
Breidenbaugh 314G. (Photos William
Oehler/The Gettysburgian)
A Bug’s Life highlights scientific and literary inspiration to focus on insects, with students reading and discussing fiction, non-fiction, poetry and scientific articles. Osborn hopes to build an appreciation for insects through narrative empathy, defamiliarization of language and scientific education.
In all her classes, however, she has appreciated working with her students, who all show interest and excitement in the topics she covers, producing meaningful conversations.
“It’s been a wonderful experience so far. I like the relationships students have with faculty and staff; it creates a great environment where conversation can flow, and you can ask really important questions,” Osborn asserted.
Outside of teaching and settling into campus, Osborn is working on the final edits for her story collection that comes out through Dzanc Books in the Spring of 2026.
This article originally appeared on page 11 of the October 2025 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
