Kathleen Donnelly
Biography
Kathleen Dixon Donnelly has been involved in aspects of teaching and the creative process for over 35 years. Kathleen's dissertation, for her Ph.D. in Communications from Dublin City University, was on the creative development of writers in early 20th century salons—The Irish Literary Renaissance, the Bloomsbury Group, the American expatriates in Paris, and the Algonquin Round Table. Her thesis for her Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Duquesne University, in her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, was on the topic of managing creative people, a case study of Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’s work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe. She has given presentations on the writers, including film showings, at universities, libraries and museums, as well as for the English-Speaking Union and the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Kathleen has also led informal ‘Such Friends’ walking tours of the Left Bank of Paris, and organized the ‘Such Friends’ tour of Ireland for the 100th anniversaries of James Joyce’s Bloomsday and the Abbey Theatre. She recently gave four presentations on Fitzgerald for the Florida Center for the Book as part of ‘The Big Read: The Great Gatsby’ in spring of 2009. Kathleen has applied her studies of creative people to teaching and training in public relations and advertising for universities and corporations, and on Semester at Sea where she adapted her creativity and marketing communications courses to include assignments in European and Asian ports. As Senior Lecturer in Public Relations in the Business School at Birmingham [UK] City University, she is course director for the Chartered Institute in Public Relations [CIPR] Diploma Program. She has recently completed the National Academy of Writing [NAW] diploma program at the university. Her piece ‘Packing My Students Away’ has been included in Finding a Voice, the first anthology of the NAW program. Kathleen began blogging in 2002 and has self-published four blooks of her blogs as part of her Gypsy Teacher series chronicling her travels with her Irish husband Tony. These are available at www.lulu.com/gypsyteacher. Her most recent blog, ‘What Are Americans Thinking?,’ tracked the changes in American opinions throughout the election year 2007-08 and is posted at www.whatareamericansthinking.blogspot.com. Kathleen lives with her Irish husband, Tony Dixon, and their cats William Butler Yeats (Willie) and Lady Augusta Gregory (Gussie), in Birmingham, UK. Their recent adventure of buying a house in England was chronicled in her blog, ‘A Yank Buys a House in ‘Brum,’ at www.ayankbuysahouseinbrum.blogspot.com.
