Gregory J. Light PhD

Gregory Light is an award-winning writer and academic who recently returned to Toronto after extensive stays abroad in Paris, London, and Chicago.

In Paris, he spent four years writing, directing, producing, and teaching theatre. Six of his plays were produced and performed in France, the UK, and Switzerland. Two were published in Canada. He also won a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.

In London, he directed over 20 Canadian plays for Canada House Cultural Centre on Trafalgar Square, wrote theatre reviews, observed two productions at the National Theatre, co-founded an arts charity, started a fringe theatre magazine (Playback), completed a Ph.D. in Education and became a university lecturer at University College London. His Ph.D. His thesis was a study of student conceptions of writing in Creative Writing programs in Higher education with a particular focus on the renowned Creative Writing program at East Anglia University led by Malcolm Bradbury.

During his 15 years in Chicago, he became a professor of education and the director of the Searle Center for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching at Northwestern University. He co-published four books with Paul Chapman Publishing (UK 2001), Sage Publishing (UK 2009), Harvard University Press (USA 2013), Bloomsbury publishers (UK 2020), and over 70 peer-reviewed academic papers.