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Nicholas P. Capo, M.F.A.

Assistant Professor English/Writing
Department of English
Coordinator, Academic Advising

Education: Pennsylvania State University, B.A. 1991; M.F.A. 1995

Courses: Fiction Workshop; Nonfiction Workshop; Creative Nonfiction; Intermediate Expository Writing; Introduction to Creative Writing; Argumentative Writing; Journalistic Writing; Principles of Writing; Connections Seminar: Writing and Civic Leadership; Connections Seminar: Writing and Civil Society; Senior Writing Project; Independent Studies in Language and Literature; Advanced Writing Workshop

Achievements: Alice H. Engelbach Memorial Endowment for Peace Studies 2006

Research Interest: Rhetoric and composition studies; creative nonfiction, fiction and poetry; editing, rhetoric of war and peace; political rhetoric and leadership

Some of Professor Nicholas Capo’s earliest memories go back to the 5th grade when he began systematically working his way across the wooden bookshelves in his school library. He started with histories and couldn’t stop. To this day, Capo reads an average of six books a week.

“Books expand my consciousness,” Capo says. “I believe the more you’re exposed to the way another human being experiences the world the more you’ll understand what drives you.”

Capo says reading is especially pleasurable when you understand the kind of labor it takes to write a good book. In his argumentative and creative writing courses, Capo tries to make reading a richer experience for his students by encouraging them to explore the different layers within text.
 
“I don’t believe in good and bad genres,” he says. “I believe in good and bad writing. When I’m choosing books for a course, I filter for quality first. I also try to pick books that are relevant to them and are connected to themes that don’t go away—human relationships, good and evil, war and peace. I’m constantly cycling in new books.”

Capo came to Illinois College in 2003 from Pennsylvania State University where he earned his B.A. and M.F.A. At Penn State, Capo served as a lecturer in English and as the associate director of composition. He received the university’s Outstanding Teaching Award for Non-Tenure Line Faculty in 2000.

“As an English professor I spend a lot of time teaching students why it’s important to be able to write well and what kind of power writing can give them,” says Capo.

Capo also believes an important part of his job is to give students exposure in a public forum.

“They write better when they know someone other than their teacher is reading their work,” says Capo, who has created several literary outlets for IC students, including an in-department poetry review.

Capo has several writing projects of his own in the works. He is working on a short-story collection entitled "Whiskey Creek" and an essay collection about runaway teens entitled "A Sheltered World." Several of Capo's scholarly articles have been published, including "Listening to the Muses" in Writers Against War.

Capo is married to fellow IC English Professor Beth Capo whom he met at Penn State. Before moving to Jacksonville, the two gave away more than 1,000 books. It didn’t take them long, however, to rebuild their collection. They recently had ceiling-to-floor bookshelves installed in their living room to help house their more than 4,000 books. Besides running and swimming, one of Capo’s hobbies is reading about other countries. He is trying read a one-volume history on every country in the world.

“I’ve got a long way to go,” he says. “I’m on Southeast Asia right now. It’s quite eye opening. You have a lot better idea of what’s going to happen in this country when you learn what’s going on elsewhere. The world becomes a much less confusing place.”

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