I am one of those people who never seem to leave school: first, I trucked through dual degrees in English Education and Women's Studies (with my first baby underfoot) to earn a background in literature, creative writing, technical writing, pedagogy, gender politics, sociology, cultural psychology, feminism (and sleeplessness). Then, I moved on to study poetry at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and creative writing in Taos, NM with renowned writing teacher, Natalie Goldberg (adding two more babies in for good measure, just to make the juggling act more daring). Now I'm in front of the classroom, where I have been teaching writing and literature at the college level since 2000 and have served as creative workshop facilitator for a variety of groups and organizations. In 2008, I won an Emerging Artist Fellowship for excellence in Fiction based on work with my first novel manuscript, Migration Summer.
Also around that time, life gifted me with some dramatic personal upheavals (heavy on the heartache and radical transformation variety). My time since has been spent recovering and rediscovering who I am through silence, solitude and hours and hours (and hours) of pouring my heart out on the page. After (partially) retreating these past two years from the "public" side of publishing and writing...while "privately" filling thirty-nine journals and notebooks, completing an entire second novel, The Glass Saint Journals and assembling a chapbook of sideshow/carnival poetry...I'm returning to blogging and publishing again to challenge myself to stop hiding behind my confessional of pen and paper and add my voice to the conversation.
For links to my published work and other news & events, please visit my website by clicking HERE.
