David Swick

BA (Skidmore), MFA (Goucher)

David Swick teaches courses on journalism ethics and writing, which includes a study of great journalists, narrative nonfiction and newspaper workshops, and leading fourth-year students in their honours projects. He was a journalist for more than 20 years before moving into teaching. His work includes CBC Radio documentaries, including Ideas shows and foreign correspondence; TV documentaries; nearly 2,000 newspaper columns; and one nonfiction book. David’s magazine working includes writing for the Shambhala Sun,Enterprise, and enRoute.

David has won two major fellowships and has judged the Junos, the Atlantic Journalism Awards, and the CBC Literary Awards. He is currently conducting a study of the range of truth practised in narrative nonfiction, in collaboration with Ivor Shapiro of Ryerson University.
 He supervises Writing Craft I, Mentorship I and II.

Publications

Book

• Thunder and Ocean. Lawrencetown Beach, N.S.: Pottersfield Press, 1996.

Selected publications

• “The line between censorship and standard civil discourse.” Letters to the editor. J-Source.ca, April 18, 2012.“Don’t take press freedom for granted”. Halifax Chronicle-Herald, April 14, 2012
• “One Moment at a Time – How Mindfulness is Helping Real People Turn Their Lives Around.” Shambhala Sun, October 2011 “The Best of Times.” — An interview with Alice Walker. Shambhala Sun, May 2007. Included in the anthology The World Has Changed — Conversations with Alice Walker, edited by Rudolph P. Byrd (New Press, New York, 2010).
• “The Zen of Joan Didion.”– A profile. Shambhala Sun, January 2007
• “Robert Coles and the Moral Life.” Shambhala Sun, January 2006

Interests

Compelling leads, the power of paragraphing, and/but confusion, rhythm, and tone