Teaching
Writing is a practice: create and revise with purpose.
- Now
- Humber Polytechnic
- Forms
- Fiction · poetry · stage · screen
David’s teaching moves between the classroom, rehearsal room, and community workshop. The common thread is practical attention to how a piece works—and how each writer can make deliberate choices without sanding away what makes the work their own.
Experience
University teaching, mentorship, youth programs, and collaborative outreach.
01 Humber Polytechnic
David teaches in Humber Polytechnic’s Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing program, working with emerging writers across forms and professional contexts.
Visit the programCreative and Professional Writing
— Bachelor’s program02 
Inkwell Workshops Inkwell Workshops
David facilitated free, drop-in creative-writing workshops for people living with mental-health or addiction issues. Sessions were led by professional writers with lived experience of mental illness.
Visit InkwellEight years of accessible community writing instruction.
— Inkwell Workshops03 
Sketch by composer Gareth Williams Breath Cycle
Created with composer Gareth Williams, Scottish Opera, and a hospital respiratory team, Breath Cycle developed songs with people living with cystic fibrosis. Online rehearsal and recording allowed participants who could not safely share physical space to make work together.
View the career noteNominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
— Opera and Music Theatre04 
Young People’s Theatre Young People’s Theatre
David facilitated a playwriting unit for young writers. Students developed script-building skills before carrying one idea through to a staged reading performed by young actors.
Visit the drama schoolFrom first idea to public reading.
— Young People’s Theatre05 University teaching
At the University of Guelph, David taught fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, drama, screenwriting, and dialogue through Open Learning and mentored capstone students. He taught playwriting at the University of Victoria in 2016.
Read David’s playwright reading listTeaching across page, stage, and screen.
— University of Guelph / University of Victoria06 
Inside Opera Inside Opera
David facilitated a community program that brought opera-making to young artists in at-risk communities through the conception, writing, and performance of a new work.
Opera made with young artists, not simply presented to them.
— Inside Opera