Finishing the Draft

Michael Pogach started writing scary stories in first grade. Most of those stories involved giant spiders and a character named Peter who rarely survived his monster encounters. What does that tell us about Pogach, professor of English and coordinator of the creative writing program?

“That probably is really accurate in informing who I am as an author now,” Pogach says with a laugh.

From his elementary school tales to jotting down ideas in a notebook while pursuing two master’s degrees (in humanities and English), Pogach has always been a writer. Now a published author of five sci-fi fantasy novels, he proudly passes on his knowledge of the craft to students pursuing NCC’s creative writing specialized diploma, a program that Pogach himself helped launch in 2021.

In 2009 when Pogach started teaching English at NCC, he found an “immediate rapport” with his fellow faculty members. He also found that his students were curious, enthusiastic, and eager to learn outside the lines. Hoping to encourage their creativity even more outside the classroom, Pogach founded NCC’s first-ever literary and arts magazine, The Laconic, in 2010.

The magazine, which comes out once a semester, is printed and produced on-site at NCC’s Bethlehem campus. The Laconic also publishes online, allowing students to easily share their published work.

“We get to really showcase everything across our student body, from poems to stories to drawings, paintings, and photographs,” Pogach says. “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of student works published over the years.”

Many of Pogach’s students have gone on to publish outside of NCC, too, and nothing makes their former professor prouder: “I always tell them, I don't care how far you've gone and how big you get—your first novel better come to me with an autograph in it,” he says. “I want a copy.”

As for getting to that coveted point of publication, Pogach has some advice for aspiring writers that comes much earlier in the process: just finish the draft. “So many people start, or think about, writing a novel, but they never finish. If you can finish that first draft, you’re elite. You’re in the small percentage.”

As a professor, Pogach feels constantly inspired by his students and their enthusiasm for writing. His favorite part of teaching is building connections with his students: seeing how they can communicate as a class, build on ideas, and learn from one another.

This type of classroom structure represents so much of what Pogach loves about teaching at NCC.

“Our faculty is actively involved in being at the forefront of the research that's going on in [our] fields. We try to be very proactive about what we're bringing to the students, and they're getting real time access to what is really going on,” Pogach explains. “The faculty here is just so dedicated to the classroom. That's our first priority always, and that's really what I love.”