Today we’d like to introduce you to Avesa Rockwell
Avesa, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I have been teaching academic and professional writing full-time at the University of Minnesota Duluth since 2006. I love this job because I get to help people see how writing can transform their lives and the larger world. Certainly writing has transformed my life.
It may have started when I wrote fan mail to my favorite writers in 4th grade, or when I wrote an essay that would get me into college and then another that would help finance my education. It really started to click during my senior year of college when I wrote grant proposals for an internship at a community organization. I raised enough money to give 100 people backyard gardens to grow their own food.
A month after graduation, I hiked across Colorado from Denver to Durango with my college sweetie. We broke up on the second day. Neither of us wanted to quit the hike, so we trudged on, usually a mile apart, for the next 500 miles. I don’t think I could have survived the trip without my trusty journal. In this case writing helped me turn a broken heart into a major physical accomplishment.
After the hike I had no idea what I wanted to do next. I returned to my hometown, Corrales, New Mexico. I interned for the village newspaper, kept financial records for an acupuncturist, baked pastries at a café, and cared for my step-dad, who had broken his leg in a motorcycle accident. All that time I just wanted to teach, but I didn’t have the credentials. On a whim I applied to an environmental education camp in Northern California, they hired me, and for the next two years I taught sixth graders about redwood forests and tide pools by encouraging them to write and draw what they saw.
This job provided room and board so I could save what little money I earned to travel. With my mom I rode a bike along the west coast of Ireland. With a dear friend I backpacked through Europe. By myself I explored villages and mountains in South America, where I always met friendly people. All the while I wrote and drew what I saw and heard.
In my mid-twenties yearned for city life, where the possibilities felt endless. I moved to San Francisco with friends. Meals and Wheels hired me to visit home-bound clients and document their living situation and needs. What I wrote often determined whether or not they could stay independent and/or acquire additional support. Then I coordinated a volunteer program for the public schools, and later a literary arts program, where I wrote grant proposals, annual reports, press releases, and anthologies of student writing.
At around this time I reconnected with an old college buddy at a friend’s wedding. He was guiding dogsledding trips in Ely. Our lives couldn’t be more different at the time, but soon we began to email each other every day. Within a year we decided to get married. I guess I owe my marriage to writing, too.
At that same time I applied to graduate schools. While I enjoyed many aspects of administrative work, I missed teaching. UMD offered me a TAship, where I would teach freshmen writing and study literature, rhetoric, and applied linguistics. For my master’s thesis I interviewed international and immigrant students about their experiences in college writing classes. I published it in the Minnesota English Journal and shared it with a consultant who was hired to improve how UMD served students who were learning English. I continue to be committed to making college accessible to students of all backgrounds, identities, and abilities.
Now I live in the East Central Hillside of Duluth with my husband Jeremy and our daughters Esme (17) and Silvia (14). We have a shepherd-mutt named Lola, two cats named Tina and Jojo, and a Netherland dwarf rabbit named Bungermin Brown. I have documented some of our pet adventures on the local web magazine Perfect Duluth Day.
I continue to write for all kinds of purposes. As UMD’s Writing Program Administrator: to design and deliver curriculum, to communicate with people inside and outside the university, and to propose and promote events and unique learning experiences,
In the community I write to advocate for changes I think will increase sustainability, like promoting year-round urban bike commuting and healthy play environments in Duluth’s Public Schools.
Jeremy and I run a business called Heck of the North Productions. We organize long-distance gravel bicycling races in remote locations across northern Minnesota– Le Grand du Nord in Grand Marais, the Fox out of Finland, and Heck of the North in Two Harbors. To promote our events we are constantly writing in social media, on our website, and in emails to customers, sponsors, and community partners.
Writing has helped me to make the life I want and to make the world a better place. I invite my students to do the same.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
As a white female from a middle class family, I have enjoyed privileges that have afforded me the opportunity to enjoy a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. I have had the luxury to perform unpaid internships, to take satisfying jobs that pay little money, to travel extensively, and to attend graduate school. Traveling and living in an international city made this privilege starkly obvious to me. I have had the freedom and means to remove myself from unpleasant situations.
However, I know that this mobility is threatened by climate change and increasing economic disparity. Floods and fires have forced us to cancel our bike races, smoke from wildfires has made me and my family cancel canoe trips and have to stay inside with the windows closed in mid-summer. The constant threat of an unrenewed contract at the University makes it hard to plan for the future. I worry that my daughters are not going to be able to enjoy the stability that my generation and their grandparents’ generations have enjoyed.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have been at the University of Minnesota Duluth for more than twenty years. I am not tenured– my contract is renewed annually. Twelve years ago I volunteered to do extra service during a period of major transitions in leadership, I saw an opportunity to invite collaboration among my fellow teachers and the students that we serve. Together, we created a writing curriculum that is flexible and can evolve in response to what students will need to survive and thrive in a world dominated by generative AI and increasing privatization. My colleagues have called me the “rock in the department that keeps changing.”
I am also proud of the bike community that my husband Jeremy and I have created. Twice a year we welcome 600+ riders to share our passion for gravel cycling in this beautiful part of the world.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love how Duluth values its natural resources: the creeks, trails, and access to the most beautiful body of water in the world. I love how Duluth is full of people who value the arts, live music, educational equity, and community gatherings. I love the gritty punk-era ethos of do it yourself that is so alive and well in this city.
I don’t love the lack of diversity. Duluthians can be narrow-minded and fearful of difference. About 18 years ago a local group put up a billboard in Central Duluth that said, “It’s hard to see racism when you are white.” Many white people freaked out about and lobbied to have the billboard removed. There has never been a truer statement, and one that I feel many Duluthians really need to let sink in. The racism here is subtle but pernicious.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.heckofthenorth.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avesa-rockwell-19711b102/
