Artist & Research Statement

Fiadhnait Moser-Hardy, MFA

My current research involves a variety of subject matters. I am especially interested in the interdisciplinary nature of fine arts and sociology. I have designed and taught eight courses at Champlain College, including the following:

• “Navigating Higher Education” (Disciplinary Focus: Academic Writing)

• “Navigating Your Information Landscape” (Disciplinary Focus: Information Literacy, Art History, Children’s Literature, Academic Writing)

• “Making Stories” (Disciplinary Focus: Creative Writing, World Folklore, Interdisciplinary Fine Arts-Visual Arts, Dance, Oral Storytelling)

• “Theoretical Perspectives on Disability” (Disciplinary Focus: Sociology-Disability Studies)

• “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Creative Process” (Disciplinary Focus: Interdisciplinary Fine Arts-Visual Arts, Dance, Creative Writing)

• “Children’s Literature and the Expressive Arts PreK-Grade 6” (Disciplinary Focus: Early & Elementary Education, Children’s Literature, Integrated Arts Education)

• “Children’s Literature and Identity Development” (Disciplinary Focus: Children’s Literature, Literary Theory, Creative Writing, Human Development-Moral Psychology)

• “Writing for the Workplace” (Disciplinary Focus: Professional Writing)

Within these courses, I explore with my students not only craft conversations regarding creative writing, but broader, interdisciplinary conversations about folklore, world cultures, children’s literature, human moral development, reader-response theory, oral storytelling, social justice art history, dance history and cultural dance, integrating arts into elementary education, disability rights and the social and medical models of disability, information literacy, professional writing and publishing, the creative process, interdisciplinary fine arts and ekphrasis, and more. I have found that when students connect their writing to topics that are important to them and their society, their writing grows in strength and power.

Within my research for my own works, I am currently exploring themes of Latinx representation and migration, as well as disability and medical neglect, British history (the Cottingley Fairies Hoax of 1917), Italian arts (Venetian mask-making), and Finnish folklore. These themes have emerged within my current works on submission and works in progress: WE WILL WALK (children’s picture book about Venezuelan immigration), MAPLE PLANTAINS (children’s picture book including cross-cultural Latinx representation), MY HEART IS A HUMMINGBIRD (children’s picture book including chronic illness representation), THIS RIVER RUNS WILD (adult novel exploring medical neglect through fabulism and involving historical research of the Cottingley Fairies Hoax), FOX FIRE (young adult novel drawing from Finnish folklore), and THE GIRL WHO LOVED THE WICKED NIGHT (middle grade novel set in Venice). My works on submission and works in progress are represented by Rena Rossner of the Deborah Harris Literary Agency in Jerusalem, Israel.

My published novels include two middle grade novels, THE FLOURISHING OF FLORALIE LAUREL (Little Bee Books/Bonnier, distributed by Simon & Schuster, 2018) and THE SERENDIPITY OF FLIGHTLESS THINGS (Little Bee Books/Bonnier, distributed by Simon & Schuster, 2019). These novels both meld literary fiction with genre fiction. THE FLOURISHING OF FLORALIE LAUREL included research into the Victorian language of flowers, Claude Monet, and 1920s England and France. THE SERENDIPITY OF FLIGHTLESS THINGS is a folktale retelling of the traditional Irish tale, The Children of Lir and includes historical research into The Troubles of Northern Ireland during the 1970s. I have also published an article with Publishers Weekly on disability representation titled “It’s Not All About the Pub Date” (Publishers Weekly, 2020), along with a review article with Shepherd.com and a personal article with The Rumpus. My immigration-focused picture book, WE WILL WALK, is currently under contract negotiations with a publisher.

While I write for all age categories, I am especially interested in children’s literature due to the transitional nature of childhood and young adulthood. Children’s literature is especially important to me as it is one of the first forms of media a human consumes, and has a strong ability to shape a person’s viewpoints and identity development. Coming-of-age experiences have been especially present in my works, and is often metaphorized by fantastical or fabulist concepts. My emerging interests in disability representation and Latinx representation stem from my own experiences with developing a disability at a critical moment in my life as well as navigating the immigration process with my husband, who travelled on foot from Venezuela to the United States in 2022. I have also been inspired by many of my students both at Champlain College and Vermont Adult Learning (an adult education and English language learning center) who have come from a variety of places around the world and have arrived in my classroom with a variety of backgrounds and neurotypes. These experiences have had a deep impact on my development as a writer and teacher, and I would hope to bring new perspectives on these topics to students within my classroom.