Ross Angelella

Ross Angelella is the director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House and principal lecturer in the College of Arts & Humanities, where he's taught writing since 2014. An award-winning teacher and writer, his areas of discipline are in screenwriting and fiction with emphases in crime, horror, science fiction, young adult, literary, historical, as well as nonfiction narratives. He is the author of the coming-of-age novel “Zombie” (2012). His short fiction has been anthologized in the short story collection Eight Very Bad Nights (2024) and has appeared in various journals, including Hunger Mountain, Sou’wester, The Literary Review, Southampton Review, and Coachella Review. His original screenplays are currently in development with a number of production companies and have won numerous awards, most recently “Best Comedy Short Script” at the Houston Comedy Film Festival (2020) and “Best Characters in a Screenplay” at the Baltimore Next Media Web Fest (2022). In recognition of his teaching, he was the recipient of the Professional Track Faculty Teaching Award in 2019 and received the 2024-2025 Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars Faculty Mentor Award. He is an active member of the University Film & Video Association, where he recently presented a paper on “Negotiating Gun Violence in Student Screenplays: How to Fight ‘Cool Characters Wielding Weapons’ with Empathy and Understanding." He earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and literature from Bennington College.