Ryan Sloan

Ryan Sloan, UC Berkeley's College Writing Programs

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Job title: 
Continuing Lecturer; Co-Facilitator of Lecturer Teaching Fellows
Bio: 

BIO

Ryan Sloan is full-time teaching faculty in UC Berkeley's College Writing Programs. His areas of concentration include multimodal composition, digital humanities, English for multilingual learners, and creative writing. He holds an MA in English and Modern Culture from University College London, an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University, and TESOL Certification from UC Berkeley.

He has a background in faculty development through his work as co-facilitator for UCB's Lecturer Teaching Fellows Program, the College Writing Research Festival, the Townsend Center's Art of Writing Koshland Graduate Fellows and the UC Berkeley Summer Creative Writing Program. Ryan also co-developed the Haas-Berkeley PreCore summer transfer program for incoming community college students into Berkeley.

Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Ryan writes fiction and creative nonfiction, and his work is in LA Weekly, Joyland Magazine, Opium Magazine, The Modern Spectator and Painted Bride Quarterly, among other publications. He is also a co-host of the long-running San Francisco-based literary performance series Babylon Salon. 

Conferences and residencies include a 2025 & 2023 Dorland Mountain Arts Residency, 2024 Vermont Studio Center Residency, 2022 Writing by Writers Tomales Bay Workshop, 2021 Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, 2021 Tin House Winter Workshop, 2019 Lit Camp Writers’ Conference and the 2019 Arctic Circle Residency on the Summer Solstice Expedition. 

COURSES

Research & Composition // CWR4B

  • Spring 2025: Future Tense: Robot Consciousness, Meme Misinformation, A.I. Evangelism and the Art of Critical Thinking

  • Fall 2022 - Fall 2024: Everything, Everywhere: Griefbots, TikTok Extremists, AI Artists and You 

  • Spring 2021: R4B Berkeley Changemaker™: Writing the Change We Seek. (Developed and taught in partnership with Berkeley Changemaker™, as the first R&C connector course for the suite with a focus on student writing as a vehicle for exploring the complexity of social change) 

  • Fall 2017 - Spring 2022: Strange Days: Technology & Our Complex Identities 

  • Spring 2014, Fall 2015, Spring 2017: Hidden Cartographies 

  • Fall 2013 & Spring 2014: Mashup, Pastiche & Satire: Authenticity in the Age of Artful Theft 

First-Year Composition // CWR1A, CWR4A

  • Fall 2025 - Spring 2026: R4A Pathways - The Lie You Tell Yourself: Grifters, Magicians, Neuroscience and the Complexity of Belief

  • Fall 2016 - Fall 2020: R1A - Beautiful Liars

  • Fall 2014 - Spring 2016: R1A - Magic, Tricksters, and the Extraordinary Ordinary 

  • Fall 2012 & 2013: R1A - Olympic Tribes, Proxy Wars, and the Ideal Body: the Complex Lens of Athletics  

  • Fall 2010 & 2011:R1A - Players, Spectators, and Fanatics: Sports as a Culture

  • Spring 2009: R1A - Visual Vocabularies  

  • Fall 2008: R1A - Seeing and Re-Seeing: the Persuasive Image

  • Spring 2008: R1A - The Working Life 

  • Fall 2007: R1A - Muckrakers & Robber Barons: the Rhetoric of Corporate Controversy  

Creative Writing: Fiction & Creative Nonfiction // CW132, CW130, CW175

  • Introduction to the Craft of Short Fiction (CW 132). Listed with the U.C. Berkeley creative writing minor. Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2023, Fall 2025, Summer 2026.

  • Introduction to the Craft of Creative Writing (CW130). Fiction and Creative Nonfiction segments. Listed with the U.C. Berkeley creative writing minor. Spring 2018, Fall 2023, Spring 2026. 

  • Players, Spectators & Fanatics: Writing on the Cultures of Sports (CW 175). Co-sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities’ Art of Writing seminar series, with an emphasis on multimodal writing. Listed with the U.C. Berkeley creative writing minor. Fall 2018, Spring 2020; Fall 2024.

Additional Writing Courses & Programs at U.C. Berkeley

  • Professional Communications Practicum [UGBA196] summer bridge course for Haas business undergraduate transfer students, including workshop, professional skills-building and community development. For more, see below under Haas. Summer 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.

  • Business Communications (UGBA100), Haas undergraduate business students. 2008 - 2023.

  • Creative Writing Workshop Intensive: Summer 2019

  • Intermediate Composition: The Future (CW 105). hybrid digital writing course, with an emphasis on multimodal writing in the sciences and social sciences: Fall 2016, Fall 2017.

  • Taught self-selected non-native speakers Grammar and Vocabulary of Written English (CW1): Spring 2017, Spring 2019.

  • Taught intensive Summer Bridge Writing course designed for incoming multilingual, generation 1.5 and underrepresented Cal first-years, Summer 2009 - 2014 

  • Developed a six-week creative writing residency for the U.C. Berkeley Summer Creative Writing Program as Program Coordinator. Responsible for marketing, messaging, events, social media and community outreach – Jan 2012 – Oct 2011. Six-week writing residency, featuring a range of writers on faculty including T. Geronimo Johnson, Justin Torres, Faith Adiele, Kaya Oakes, Elmaz Abinader, and Tess Taylor. Also featured guest speakers including Lan Samantha Chang, Camille Dungy, Anthony Swofford, and Brenda Hillman, plus editors from McSweeney’s, Threepenny Review, and Zoetrope. Helped grow the program from its inception to 20 students in its first year, and then to 80 students in its second year. 

  • Fiction: The Art of Beginnings & Endings at Summer Fiction Intensive [UCB Extension], Summer 2011 - 2013

  • Writing Skills Workshop creative nonfiction writing course [UCB Extension], Summer 2010

PRESENTATIONS AND POSTER SESSIONS

  • Panelist, UCB Townsend Center Symposium: “Reimagining R&C: Inquiry, Collaboration, Innovation” with Ramona Naddaff, Pat Steenland, Rick Kern, Glynda Hull, Oliver O’Reilly - April 18, 2025

  • Presenter, College Writing Programs Colloquium: “ChatGPT, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI” with Ben Spanbock - March 9, 2023  

  • Presenter at New York University’s virtual symposium ReVision and ReForm: Teaching Writing Across Borders: “The Porous Borders of Rigorous Play: Digital Literacies & Multilingual Student Writers” - Oct 23-24, 2020

  • Presenter at the 2019 Association for Business Communication [ABC] annual conference: “The Performance of Self in Digital Life: Authenticity and Adaptability in the Time of Fake News,” Detroit, Michigan - Oct 23-26, 2019

  • Presenter & workshop leader as part of a four-person faculty development team from U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Teaching & Learning: “Promoting Student Engagement for Learning,” “Critical Thinking Made Visible Through Writing,” “Facilitating Faculty Learning Communities” -- at 3-day seminar with several hundred attendees from across China, hosted by Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Teaching & Teacher Development Program, Beijing,China - Dec 4-6, 2018.

  • Presenter at the 2017 Association for Business Communication [ABC] annual conference: “Diversity, Community, Identity: Surprising Outcomes in U.C. Berkeley's PreCore Transfer Bridge Program” Dublin, Ireland - Oct 19, 2017.

  • Presenter, U.C. Writing Conference 2016: “Strategies for Multimodal Course Design & Assessment with Multilingual Student Writers” U.C. Santa Barbara – Oct 14, 2016.

  • Guest lecture, Education 140: invitation from Glynda Hull to conduct a recorded lecture on digital tools and multimodal skills to undergraduates - Fall 2016.

  • Guest lecture, Townsend Center Art of Writing Program: digital tools and multimodal skills workshop as part of a weeklong series for Koshland Graduate Fellows teaching R&C writing classes in their disciplines - June 2016, 2017, 2018.

  • Presenter, U.C. Berkeley Waves of Innovation Festival, “Tumblr as Artist Studio: Digital Interventions for Multilingual Writers”- May 2016.

  • Guest lecture, Civil Engineering 103: “Research, Science Blogs, and the Best Party Conversation Ever” - Feb 2016.

  • Guest lecture & workshop, Haas MBA / Law JD: “Creating a Strong Pitch Deck” - Sept 2015. 

  • Guest lecture, Haas DeCal: “Interview Prep & Job Success: How to Pitch Yourself” - Sept 2015.

  • Presenter at 2015 annual Computers & Writing Conference at University of Wisconsin: “Tumblr & the Framework of Rigorous Play: Digital Interventions for Multilingual Students”.

  • Presenter at the 2012 Association for Business Communication [ABC] annual conference, Honolulu: “The Utility of Short-Sightedness: Stakeholder Theory atthe Center of Curriculum Design.”

  • Co-presenter for U.C. Berkeley faculty development session: “Multimodal Composition: An Overview for Whizzbang Enthusiasts & Cheerful Traditionalists” – 2012.  

  • Presenter at the 2011 Association for Business Communication [ABC] annual conference, Montreal: “Reconciling @Aristotle with #NewMedia: Finding Innovative Ways to Develop Strong Business Writing” and “Delivering Negative Messages with Integrity, By Way of BP and Mad Men” in the My Favorite Assignment speaking series.

  • Co-Presenter for UC Berkeley’s Classroom in Progress speaking series: “Putting the R in R&C” – 2011.

  • Presenter at national Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC): “Facebook’d and Friended: the Construction of Personas in the Composition Classroom” – San Francisco, 2009.

WRITING RESIDENCIES & WORKSHOPS  

  • Dorland Mountain Arts Residency 2023 and 2025, Temecula CA

  • Vermont Studio Center 2024 Fellow, Johnson VT [working with Francisco Cantu]

  • Alderworks Alaska Writers & Artists Retreat 2024 [finalist]

  • Arctic Circle Alumni Residency 2024 Fellow, Svalbard, Norway [accepted, unable to attend]

  • Dorland Mountain Arts Residency 2023, Temecula CA

  • Writing x Writers Conference 2022, Tomales Bay CA [working with Karen Russell] 

  • Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference 2021 Fellow, Ripton VT / remote [working with Jennine Capo Crucet]

  • Tin House Winter Workshop 2021 Fellow, Portland OR / remote [working with Genevieve Hudson]

  • Arctic Circle Writer’s Residency 2019 Fellow, Svalbard, Norway

  • Lit Camp Writers’ Conference 2019 Fellow, Esalen CA [working with Jonathan Lethem]

PUBLICATIONS & MANUSCRIPTS

Novel manuscript Mercurials represented by Salky Literary Management, 2026.

Novel manuscript The Plagiarists represented by Karpfinger Literary Agency, 2016.

“‘I’d Like My Life Back’: BP, Aristotle, and Negative Messages with Integrity,” Business Communications Quarterly, Sept 2012. Vol 75, Issue 3, pp. 317 – 339

Fiction and creative nonfiction, including: 

The Huldra - Joyland Magazine [image accompanying story]

Role: 
Faculty
Summer Creative Writing