Retired Professor, English
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
Biography
After 38 years, Rebecca Worley retired from the University of Delaware English Department, specifically the Professional Writing Program, where she specialized in business communication and information design, teaching courses on web development and print publication. She also created and directed their internship program, and was a founding member and later director of the university’s cross-disciplinary New Media minor. She was on the editorial review board of Business and Professional Communication Quarterly for 15 years, as well as Editor of their Special Sections feature. She has authored a textbook on business communication as well as several academic articles, and worked as a consultant on business communication to a number of Fortune 500 companies, as well as the U.S. government.
Since retirement, she has been teaching courses for the university’s Academy of Lifelong Learning (Osher), returning to her first love–literature. Through several courses over the past five years, she has been exploring the popular genres, specifically mystery novels and historical fiction, with a focus on women writers, their rise in prominence, and their adaptations of these traditional genres. In these courses, she’s also ventured abroad and explored the role of women authors and genre writing in the construction of history and national identity, specifically in Australia and Scotland, as well as in the U.S.