Goucher College: Profile of Ryan Heryford

Ryan Heryford
Senior / English major / Pittsburgh, PA

These past years have been the most important I’ve had thus far, just in terms of developing. When I got here, I felt like I could do anything, and there was going to be somebody who would promote it and encourage it. I just kind of blew up when I came here. I got to explore so much.

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Because of his keen interest in creative writing, Ryan Heryford knew he was looking for a small liberal arts school with a strong English program. After checking out the campus and meeting English professors Madison Smartt Bell and Elizabeth Spires, he knew that Goucher was a place where he could make some real progress with his writing career—and his life.

“I liked the more liberal atmosphere of Goucher,” says Heryford. “It seemed like a very accepting school. I was kind of a shy student, and it seemed like the kind of place where I could make a lot of friends, be comfortable, and not worry about my insecurities. I met Madison while I was here visiting the campus, and started reading his books when I went back home. That’s when I really got into the idea of working under him.

In addition to working with Bell on short stories—one of which quickly snowballed into a novel-in-progress—Heryford took advantage of his mentor’s strong connections to the Baltimore/D.C. writing scene and landed an internship at JMWW, a local online literary journal. He also took poetry courses with Spires, and additional fiction workshops with the Kratz Center for Creative Writing’s guest writers in residence.

“The professors are so dedicated to their students, and they give so much individual attention,” says Heryford. “They don’t try to bring their own opinions and their own writing practices to the table. Each course is different for each student. It’s very tailored to students’ needs.”

Heryford found that the literature and criticism courses he needed to complete his English major, with their diverse reading lists, strengthened his own writing.

“In literature classes, teachers’ opinions get involved much more—their ideas about what literary criticism ought to be, what literature they’re most focused on, why they’re passionate about it. In a lot of other programs, if you’re involved in creative writing, you’re mainly on that track, whereas at Goucher, they really do make you explore critical theory.”

Beyond his interest in writing, Heryford came to Goucher as an experienced world traveler. He’d already lived in Australia for a year, and visited Europe. While in college, he decided to expand his horizons with a somewhat unconventional study-abroad experience. One summer, he spent seven weeks in Outer Mongolia, working as a camera assistant for a Fulbright program through the University of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

“They’d hired a recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh who was trying to be a filmmaker,” explains Heryford. “There were ten different professors over there doing different work-a geologist, some anthropologists. We traveled to different parts of the country, filmed their research, and discussed what they were working on. I wasn’t paid to do it, but they covered my airfare and expenses.”

The winter before his senior year, Heryford and a friend studied German at the famed Goethe Institut in Munich. While there, he traveled to Paris for a weekend, and discovered a love of French, as well. His interest in other modern languages has naturally informed his grasp of English concepts and critical issues. And his interest in literature and critical theory has inspired him to move on to a Ph.D. program in English after graduation.

“I’m still very involved in fiction writing, but I feel confident that I can go to school for six years to study literary theory and not go insane or become the most boring person in the world,” says Heryford. “I know now that I’ll always have that part of me that can go out and play guitar, or write a story. That’s a nice feeling.”