“My idea of teaching literature is just to read great passages aloud or to look at it the way a writer does, which is what I try to do. Which is to say, 'How does this writer do this? How did he order his scenes? Do you notice any pattern to his sentences?'”

American author, educator, and physician

Ethan Andrew Canin is an American author, educator, and physician. He is a faculty member at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He is known for work that bridges medicine and literature, and for his role in teaching writers at one of the best known graduate programs in the United States. The available facts place him as both a practicing physician and a working writer, with his career grounded in writing and instruction rather than a single public role.