Colby Ornell finds interest in true crime. While pursuing her doctoral degree in creative writing, she stumbled upon the League City Killing Fields, a series of unsolved murders dating back to the 1970s. The story was so fascinating, she chose to write about it and small-town violence in general for her dissertation. Ornell felt attached to the story, having family members that grew up and lived in League City, located 30 miles South of Houston.
Ornell received her bachelor’s in English Literature and Education in 2014 from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, a MFA in Creative Writing in 2018 from Butler University in Indianapolis, and a PhD in Creative Writing last year from the University of Houston.
While pursuing her doctorate, Ornell began teaching high school students through community outreach programs for five years before becoming a lecturer and instructor at the University of Houston. Ornell taught first-year writing, introduction to literature and creative writing. At St. John’s, she teaches English I and the creative writing elective.
Although she considers vocabulary and grammar important parts of her English courses, literary analysis is the most important aspect. “The most interesting thing is what [students] have to say and the sort of different perspectives people bring to it,” she said.
Ornell wants her students to deeply understand and learn from literature. “There's an enormous amount that you can learn from books, even if you don’t like them,” Ornell said.
Ornell first heard about St. John’s from her UH teaching assistant, an SJS graduate who constantly raved about the School.
Ultimately, Ornell came to SJS because she feels that the relationship between a high school student and teacher is more unique than a college student and professor. In a high school environment, teachers and students meet more often and thus create a stronger bond.
“It's hard to have the kind of classroom community that it's possible to have at a school, especially a smaller independent school like St. John's,” Ornell said.
Beyond the classroom, Ornell enjoys writing short prose pieces and has had a few works published. When she writes, she is fond of playing around with genres, creating pieces that fit many different classifications and writing about things personal to her. Ornell cites her dissertation as one of her most interesting pieces.
Ornell’s advice to aspiring writers is to, “write what you know, write what you feel, but also write what is unique to you.”
