Laura Apol
Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Iowa
363 Erickson
517-353-6450
Laura Apol is a poet and an associate professor of literacy and curriculum in the College of Education, Department of Teacher Education. She is the author of several prize-winning collections of poetry (Falling into Grace; Crossing the Ladder of Sun; Requiem, Rwanda, drawn from her work using writing to facilitate healing among survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi; and, most recently, Nothing but the Blood), and she has published widely in the areas of literacy education, children's and YA literature, and arts-based research methodologies. She has worked in a number of international contexts (Rwanda, Indonesia), and her most recent publication, Poetry, Poetic Inquiry, and Rwanda: Engaging with the Lives of Others (Springer International, 2021) focuses on arts-based inquiry, international collaboration, and the therapeutic uses of writing in response to trauma. Her newest poetry collection, A Fine Yellow Dust, is forthcoming from the Michigan State University Press.