Rate My Professor Lynne Barrett

Lynne Barrett is a Professor of English at Florida International University, specializing in Literature. She teaches graduate and undergraduate workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, and mystery and suspense, as well as MFA thesis workshops and seminars in plot and literary journalism. As founding editor of The Florida Book Review, she has significantly contributed to literary discourse in South Florida. Barrett also serves as president of the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers and has received numerous accolades at FIU, including Top Scholar in 2012, Award for Excellence in Graduate Mentorship in 2011, Award for Excellence in Research, College of Arts, Sciences, and Education Award for Service, and Department of English Award for Teaching. Her career includes extensive teaching at writers' conferences such as the International Women's Writing Guild, Florida Gulf Coast University Sanibel Island Writers Conference, Grub Street Muse & the Marketplace, Key West Literary Seminar Writers' Workshops, and Miami Dade College Student Writers Conference, where she leads sessions on plot, structure, character, setting, and mystery writing.

Barrett's publications include three story collections: Magpies (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2012), which earned the Florida Book Awards gold medal for fiction; The Secret Names of Women; and The Land of Go. She authored the handbook What Editors Want: A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines and edited anthologies such as Making Good Time: True Stories of How We Do, and Don’t, Get Around in South Florida (Jai-Alai Books, 2019), Birth: A Literary Companion, and the James M. Cain Cookbook. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Hong Kong Review, River Teeth, Mystery Tribune, The Southern Women’s Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Orange Blossom Review, The Saturday Evening Post, and others, with nominations for Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Million Writers Prize, and distinctions in Best American Essays and Best American Mysteries. Barrett has received the Edgar Award for best mystery short story and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, underscoring her impact in creative writing and mystery genres.