Teaching
My Yale in London writing students on our visit to Liverpool, Summer 2022
"Adam Sexton's instruction set me on a thrilling path. Adam is a confident, brilliant guide to recognizing your talents and building beautiful things from there. I've taken many classes in my life and have forgotten many lessons and guides in the process but his classes and method have remained with me, daily. I work to make him proud."
-- Carmen Rita Wong, author, the memoir Why Didn't You Tell Me, and (as Carmen Rita) the novels Never Too Real and Never Too Late.
"Adam's class inspired me to quit my job and leave New York City to get my Ph.D. in Creative Writing."
-- Margot Singer, Associate Professor of English, Denison University; author, Underground Fugue and The Pale of Settlement, winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, and the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, CT
Yale in London
Department of British Studies
Lecturer, Summer 2022
-- Writing About Music in the UK
School of Art
Department of Graphic Design
Critic, 2016-present
Yale College
Department of English
Lecturer, 2013-present
-- Writing Concentration Senior Project, 2017-present
-- Writing About Music, 2016-present
-- The Craft of Fiction, 2014-present
-- Reading and Writing the Modern Essay, 2013-present
Bass Family Trumbull College Writing Tutor, 2014-present
Daily Themes Tutor, 2014
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, School of the Arts, New York, NY
Adjunct Assistant Professor
-- Reading Fiction for Writers, Summer 2015
-- Nonfiction Workshop, Summers 2014, 2015
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, School of Continuing and Professional Studies, New York, NY
Instructor
-- Fiction Writing I, 2007
-- Reading Moby-Dick, 2006
-- Philip Roth’s Alter Egos, 2005
-- Reading Fiction for Fiction Writers, 2003-2006
-- Nonfiction and Fiction Tutorials, 2002-2007
-- Beginning and Advanced Nonfiction Writing, 2001-2006
Part-time Lecturer
-- Beginning and Advanced Nonfiction Writing, 2001
PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN, New York, NY
Instructor
-- Critical Reading and Writing I and II, 2003-2007
-- HEOP Critical Studies, Summers 2004-2005
-- Literature and Composition II: Race and Gender, Rock and Rap, 2002-2003
-- Wireless Literature and Composition I and II, 2001-2003
-- Literature and Composition I, 2000-2003
Faculty Adviser
-- Independent Study in Fiction Writing, 2001
RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY, New Brunswick, NJ
Part-time Lecturer
-- Expository Writing, 1997
GUEST LECTURING
Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT
Invited lecturer, Social Gerontology and Health Lab, 2024
-- Topic: How to Tell a Story
Yale Model United Nations 50, Omni Hotel, New Haven, CT
Invited lecturer, 2024
-- Topic: What Is a Narrative?
Yale College, New Haven, CT
Plenary lecturer, Daily Themes, 2023-24
-- Topic: Characterization through Narrative
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Invited lecturer, Yale Summer Session Lecture Series, 2023
-- Topic: What Is a Narrative?
Yale Writers' Conference, New Haven, CT
Plenary lecturer, 2017
-- Topic: Reading Like a Writer
Yale College, New Haven, CT
Plenary lecturer, Intro to Creative Writing, 2015-16
-- Topic: Introduction to Fiction Writing
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
Hudson Strode Lecturer in the Age of Shakespeare, 2015
-- Topic: Classics, Illustrated: Faithfully Adapting Shakespeare's Tragedies as Manga
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
Invited lecturer, Words on Will series, 2008
-- Topic: Shakespeare + Manga
Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY
Invited lecturer, 2008
-- Topic: Adapting Hamlet
Paul McGhee Division, New York University, New York, NY
Guest author, Foundations of the Creative Process course, 2008
University of Pennsylvania Kelly Writer’s House, New York, NY
Invited lecturer, 1999 and 2006
-- Topics: Point of View in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Structure in Joyce’s ‘Araby’, and Plot and Structure in Fiction Writing
TEACHING HONORS
Awarded FAS Instructional Faculty Conference Travel Grant, Yale University (2024)
Awarded English Department Discretionary Funds, Yale University (2023-24)
Named Trumbull Residential College Fellow, Yale University (2019)
Named Silliman Residential College Fellow, Yale University (2015)
Named Finalist for Distinguished University Teaching Award, The New School, 2007
Awarded Professional Equity Project Grant, The New School, 2003
-- Nominated by The New School and awarded membership, expenses, and admission to annual Conference on College Composition and Communication
Awarded New School Faculty Development Fund Grant, The New School, 2002-2003
-- One of 2 instructors awarded $6,000 to instruct Parsons faculty in pedagogical adaptations of new media
Awarded teaching fellow for assistance with instruction, The New School, 2002
Interviewed on the teaching of writing and literature by Time and Poets & Writers
Classes featured on BBC Radio and in Philadelphia Weekly