Amy Beth Wright

Professor of Practice

Professor Wright (Amy Beth) has been part of the writing faculty at Purchase since 2012. She has taught College Writing since, while also developing several courses for the Expository Writing program, including Critical Explorations in Contemporary Culture (an upper-level critical writing course), Teaching Good Prose, a creative nonfiction course entitled The Art of the Essay, Advanced Critical Writing, and Introduction to Digital Publishing. She founded and edits Expose,The Purchase College Journal of Expository Writing, which shares and celebrates writing created within the College and Expository Writing program.

Amy Beth earned her MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and writes autobiographical essays as well as reported stories about wine, travel, art, food, public lands, and architecture. She serves on the board of the SUNY Council on Writing and co-edits a craft-of-pedagogy blogzine for writing educators entitled SUNY Writes!

Representative Courses

College Writing

Critical Explorations of Contemporary Culture

The Art of the Essay

Teaching Good Prose

Introduction to Digital Publishing

Publications

As a journalist, Amy Beth regularly contributes to Wine Enthusiast, SevenFifty Daily, Decanter, The Vintner Project, and Fodors Travel, among other outlets. Her autobiographical writing and interviews have also been included in Catapult, Electric Literature, Nashville Review, Bold Journey, TriQuarterly, and Southwest: The Magazine. Click here for more about her journalistic projects and creative writing. 

Amy Beth co-founded and edits Parks & Points, a website dedicated to sharing writing about public lands, and also co-edited Wayfinding, an anthology of poetry celebrating parks and public lands, published by Finishing Line Press in August of 2021. 

As a member of the board of the SUNY Council on Writing, Amy Beth also co-created and edits SUNY Writes! a resource for writing educators created in collaboration with the SUNY Council on Writing.

In 2025, Professor Wright was named the Allen Shoup Memorial Fellow for writers and communicators, an award created by the Washington State Wine Commission, the Auction of Washington Wines, the Washington Winegrowers Association, and the Washington Wine Industry Foundation.

Presentations / Conferences

Conference co-chair: “Writing, Thinking, and Learning with AI: Exploring Relationships of Rhetoric and Artificial Intelligence.” A virtual conference hosted by the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at SUNY Stony Brook and the SUNY Council on Writing. October 2023.

Conference poster, “Oral Storytelling and Embodiment: How the Moth Story Slam Model Builds Community and Nurtures Student Selfhood,” University of Connecticut First Year Writing Program, Conference on the Teaching of Writing, May 2022.

Conference planning committee: “Scarcity and Abundance: Cultivating Community and Expertise in Uncertain Times.” A virtual conference hosted by the SUNY Council on Writing, October 2021.

Conference planning committee: “The Art of Writing/The Writing of Art.” SUNY Council on Writing at Purchase College, November 2019.