ABOUT ME
I am a creative, a mother, a wife.
I began my professional life in Florida working as an environmental advocate. After a good long while, I switched gears and decided to pursue an MA in English followed by an MFA in creative non-fiction. Along the way, I got married, moved to Oregon, gave birth to a son, adopted another son, and began hosting exchange students, so we were often a family of five.
Now, I'm in transition: our oldest has graduated college and is newly out in the world, our youngest is a junior in high school, soon to graduate. We're currently running a split household: our youngest son and I live in a townhouse in Portland and my husband lives back in our home in the small town of La Grande in Eastern, Oregon, four hours away. We're making it work.
My creative ventures live at the intersection of the personal and political, and often focus on the particular challenges of parenting boys as an older mother in the 21st century. That and staying sane in these uncertain times!
In addition to my creative life, I've had quite a fun and varied career. Here are some highlights:
COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT
2015 - present
I've had the privilege of assisting a variety of impressive non-profit organizations and independent businesses with their grant writing, donor outreach, electronic newsletters, and leadership transitions. Clients included a bookstore, an ecology group, a domestic violence shelter, and a tutoring company.
ARTS ADMINISTRATOR
2011 - 2015
In 2011 our family moved from Portland to Wallowa County in Eastern Oregon so I could serve as the Executive Director of Fishtrap, a mid-sized nonprofit dedicated to promoting writing in and about the West. We hosted an annual writers' conference each summer, a winter fireside reading series, and a county-wide sponsored Big Read. I did a lot of fundraising! And also got to interview a slew of amazing writers. Here I am with novelist Kim Barnes.
COLLEGE PROFESSOR
1997-2005
After several years as an adjunct instructor at a variety of colleges, I finally settled in a s a visiting professor at Linfield College, where I taught freshman inquiry seminars, creative writing: fiction, non-fiction and poetry, introduction to 20th Century American literature, and special topics classes, including The Literary Portrayal of Madness and Diverse Voices: Women Writers.
Education
MFA, creative non-fiction, Rainer Writing Program
MA, English and Creative Writing, Florida State University
BA, History, Carleton College