Faculty Friday: Porscha Burke ’17

Our "Faculty Friday" series highlights one faculty member from the Welch Center every Friday. We ask these faculty members about their career, their work, and what they love about Goucher.

This week's faculty member: 
Porscha Burke ’17
Adjunct Lecturer, M.F.A. in Nonfiction
Publishing Manager, Random House

Where are you from?

Queens, NY

What excites you most about the field of nonfiction writing/journalism?

I love the variety of storytelling techniques available when anchoring a narrative in truth—either factual, experiential, or philosophical/inspirational. From the lyric essay to the epistolary memoir, from rap narratives to news magazine features, there are so many powerful ways to convey a fact-based story that will entertain, inform, and resonate with readers.

Tell us about your first job in the field.

In one of my first editorial meetings at Random House, I exclaimed out loud that I didn't really like memoir as a genre. My future boss politely pulled me aside and told me I shouldn't make blanket statements like that and placed a copy of James McBride's The Color of Water in my hands. My literary life was never the same.

What are you currently reading?

Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk by Delores S. Williams.

Tell us about a favorite hobby or passion of yours.

Baking was an inevitable hobby—I love dessert, grew up in a family of dessert-lovers, and began editing cookbooks just as I really started to take baking seriously. My best recipe? Hands down, my red velvet cake.

What's your favorite thing about Goucher's nonfiction program?

The support Goucher's writers give to one another is inspiring and exciting—to say the least.