Along the way, as Peckham put pen to paper, she realized the process of writing helped identify her feelings and ultimately cemented her thoughts and beliefs. Fast forward and Peckham, now Dr. Peckham, is a published author, a highly sought-after college educator at Marshall and recipient of the 2024 Professor of the Year by the Faculty Merit Foundation of West Virginia.
It was those early writings and experience with her high school newspaper that initially pushed Peckham toward a career in journalism, that is, until a job shadowing assignment led her to a college classroom where a children’s literature seminar was being taught by family friend, Dr. Kathleen Sherfick.
“…it wasn’t just the assigned reading that impacted me that day, it was getting to witness Dr. Sherfick and her students participate in an open-ended and thoughtful dialogue about the book,” Peckham recalled. “It was structured unlike any class I had experienced in my education, up until that point, and I was hooked. I knew then that I belonged in the college English classroom, and I’ve never left it.”
Peckham, who has received multiple teaching awards at Marshall, is a fan favorite with students. But the classroom experience doesn’t just excite students. Peckham says she, too, is boosted by the symbiotic nature of the classroom dynamic.
“My good friend Marie Manilla, a brilliant writer and teacher in her own right, made a comment once that there’s nothing like teaching to recharge a writer’s batteries,” Peckham said. “It’s true! Not only do you feel like a fraud if you’re not practicing what you preach in the writing classroom, there’s a profound sense of identification and empathy that I experience in relating to my students’ struggles, which are often the same ones I share, as a writer.”
Peckham’s writings include “Alight: Flights of Prose” (Uncollected Press) and “Muck Fire: Prose Poems and Other Cultivations” (forthcoming from Compass Press). Her articles, essays and poems have received other awards and distinctions, including two honorable mentions in the Best American Essays series, the ½ K Prize at Indiana Review, the Orison Anthology Nonfiction Award, and the Special Feature Literary Nonfiction Award at Crab Orchard Review.
The professor of English has been at Marshall since 2009 when she was hired to develop and teach courses in creative nonfiction, the genre that includes memoir, autobiography, and the personal essay, among other forms of writing. Peckham calls the connection to Marshall ironic in some respects.
“For one thing, I find it incredibly poignant that my life led me to a university and city affected by mass loss from an aviation accident, which my family knows something about,” she said. “In 1976, my mother lost her dad and both of her brothers in a small plane crash that devastated my hometown (there were six men on board, all farmers from our tiny community), and while my family’s tragedy is nowhere close to the size and scope of Marshall and Huntington’s, I feel a profound kinship with this community that’s difficult to put into words.”
Peckham and her husband, Dr. Joel Peckham, who is also a professor of English at Marshall, have passed on their love of the writing craft to son Darius who is a creative writing graduate student in Texas.
“All three of us have benefited from belonging to the vibrant and warm community of artists, musicians, and writers we’ve found here. And when we’re not writing, we nurture our spirits by hiking the local trails, taking our Golden Retriever for a swim at Beech Fork Lake, practicing yoga, enjoying long walks around Ritter Park, and worshipping at St John’s Episcopal Church in Huntington. It’s a good life.”
For more information on Marshall’s Department of English and Dr. Rachael Peckham, visit www.marshall.edu/english
