Bruce Gillespie
Areas of Expertise
- Creative Writing
- Media and Communication Theory
Biography
Bruce is an associate professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Wilfrid Laurier University, where he creates and teaches courses about journalism and user experience design. In 2017, he was named a university teaching fellow. Between 2018 and 2022, he was the coordinator of Laurier’s Digital Media and Journalism program.
His research focuses on literary journalism, journalism ethics, journalism education and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). His work has been published in a range of journals and books, including Literary Journalism Studies, Teaching & Learning Inquiry and The Routledge Companion to Journalism Ethics.
He is the author of News Writing and Reporting: An Introduction to Skills and Theory, published by Oxford University Press, which is used in university and college classrooms across Canada. He also edited three collections of personal essays about the family in the 21st century, including Nobody’s Father: Life Without Kids and Somebody’s Child: Stories About Adoption, both with Lynne Van Luven, and A Family by Any Other Name: Exploring Queer Relationships, which was a finalist in the LGBT Anthology category of the 27th annual Lambda Literary Awards and was the silver medal winner in the LGBT Non-Fiction Category at the 2015 Independent Book Publisher Awards (IPPYs).
Bruce was the editor-in-chief of J-Source.ca and the inaugural co-editor of the Journal of Integrated Studies. He has served on a number of committees at the faculty and senate level related to academic planning, curriculum, teaching and learning and quality assurance. He has also been involved in internal and external program reviews.
In 2020, the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities recognized him with a Minister’s Award of Excellence for his work keeping the Laurier Brantford community connected through the One Market podcast, which he created and produced with Tarah Brookfield between 2020 and 2021.
Research Interests/Ongoing Projects
I recently published a study that examined how the use of storytelling and elements of game design can increase engagement and help students better understand the connections between theory and practice. My other research interests include literary journalism, journalism and media ethics and creative nonfiction.