Sara C. Rolater
(scrola)
writer/artist/educator
(she/they)
Sara C. Rolater is a graduate of Rice University and received their MFA in fiction from the University of Houston, where they served as an assistant editor in fiction for Gulf Coast and where they have taught composition, literature, and creative writing since 2011. They have taught creative writing for Inprint, Writespace, Writers in the Schools, and Grackle & Grackle, written for Citysearch Houston and offcite.org, and been a fellow at the Writing Immersion Retreat in Bali and at the Byrdcliffe Artist in Residence program in Woodstock, New York. Their work has appeared in Ghost Town, Gulf Coast, and Our Space: Shorts and Poetry from the Houston Community.
They have been a consultant in the Creative Writing Department at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts since 2014, teaching introductory and advanced fiction workshops as well as electives in creative nonfiction, journalism, collage, clothing, horror writing, music writing, world-building, Disney texts, and musicals, with their posts as well as their students' posts on these subjects available on the blog the pva creative writing review. They are currently at work on the visual art hybrid project The Corrections in Collage, the hybrid genre nonfiction-memoir The Stephen King of Rock 'n' Roll derived from their blog Long Live the King, and the queer YA horror-thriller novel Nuns Are Hot Right Now. They have experimented with daily collage practice at flattenthemintoaset.com.
English Lecturer and Graduate Teaching Fellow Supervisor, University of Houston (2011/2018-present)
Creative Writing Consultant, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (2014-present)
contact: scrola@gmail.com
"The highlight of my day at ‘PVA was always your fiction class. ... Thank you for your patience and for accepting me into your fiction class! It completely changed my life.
... you introduced me to the magic of analysis. I had always been a book lover, but I had never known that authors wrote 'secret messages' beyond literal sentences before taking your class. It felt like you brought color to the previously black-and-white TV that turned itself on while I read a story."
-Laura Mercado, HSPVA class of '19
"Sara C. Rolater is honestly such a bro. In addition to being an undeniably brilliant writer and teacher, she's such an effortlessly cool person. She's the most insightful workshopper I've ever met in my LIFE, but beyond that she really sees the potential in people and is so good at bringing that out. Like, her interactions with her kids aren't like some teachers where she feels so far removed. Instead, she really relates and is real with everybody. She'll just level with you, and so kids who are a mess in other classes really produce some great stuff in her class. Not to mention, her lessons really are helpful and informative, and every piece of writing she's ever shown us is something that I've gone on to really enjoy and come back to. She's a cool teacher not in the way that she's actively trying to impress or be friends with her students. Instead, she's like this funny, vaguely unimpressed figure whom everyone really looks up to, so it really makes you feel good if she laughs at something you said or likes your work or whatever. ... She's really, really great. Shout out to Scrola."
-from the HSPVA Compliments Facebook page, October 4, 2016
"Thank you so much for this successful semester in your asynchronous class! I also took your ENGL 1301 in-person class last semester, which was also my first semester as a college student. Your class and the messages you push your students to understand through your teaching methods have left a lasting impact on me. Thank you for being such a great and considerate professor! ... as a professor, you made the class very inclusive, participating, and respectful! English was always an interesting subject for me, but it wasn’t until I took your class that I was able to build my skills further and deep dive into topics of my choice."
-Catherine Hernandez, University of Houston hybrid student in ENGL 1301 fall 2022, online student in ENGL 1302 Spring 2023
"Thank you so much for the material covered in English 1301! In high school, I was never good at essays and any advice given to me by my English teachers throughout my four years of high school was ambiguous and inconsistent from year to year. I began to dislike English and writing in general since each time I wrote my essays and completed APMC questions I would receive poor grades, which made me frustrated. However, after this semester of English, my confidence in my writing skills has increased and although my writing skills still have a long way to go, your course has still had an amazing impact on me nonetheless."
-Nikolas Draca, University of Houston online student in ENGL 1301 Fall 2022, online student in ENGL 1302 Spring 2023
