David Aitchison

A graduate of the creating writing programs at the University of Glasgow and Boston University, David Aitchison earned his PhD in American literature & history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012. From 2013 to 2019, he was a Chicagoland college professor teaching British & American literature, children’s literature, research methods, and writing. Since 2019, he has been an independent scholar based in Chicago, where he teaches diverse learners in social science for Chicago Public Schools. As a teacher and a scholar, he is concerned with the ways in which fiction and curricula work to represent, educate, and guide children and young adults, especially in terms of civic engagement. His essays on literature, politics, education, and young identity have appeared in journals including The Lion and the Unicorn, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Children’s Literature in Education, Pedagogy, and Journal of Narrative Theory. He edits and publishes fiction under the pen name Gibb Walker.