Ross Angelella

Ross Angelella is the director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House and senior lecturer in the Department of English 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 TV and feature films, young adult, literary, historical, horror, science fiction, crime, and nonfiction narratives. He is the author of the coming-of-age novel “Zombie” (2012). His short fiction has appeared in various journals, including Hunger Mountain, Sou’wester, The Literary Review, Southampton Review and Coachella Review where his short story “Sauce” won “Best Short Story” in 2012. His original screenplays have won numerous awards, most recently “Best Comedy Short Script” at the Houston Comedy Film Festival in 2020 and “Best Characters in a Screenplay” at the Baltimore Next Media Web Fest in 2022. In recognition of his teaching, he was the recipient of the Professional Track Faculty Teaching Award in 2019. 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.