I tell stories and encourage others to tell theirs. As of 2023, I’m in the thesis stage of my MFA in Creative Writing at Mississippi University for Women’s low-residency program. This project is a hybrid memoir and poetry collection (because eff genre. What is it really, anyway?). I also have a completed novel, Sin and Love and Fear, a southern gothic tale exploring the nuances of women’s sexuality, trauma, and abortion. I’m currently working on securing agency representation. 

About me, though? I’ve always been a writer, but stopped writing for anyone but me for 15 years, from the time I was 22 until my 37th birthday. In college, I studied writing and literature and finished 16 graduate credits with my undergrad degree (in poli sci and literature) but got scared and went to law school instead. I hated it and spent the next fifteen years working in nonprofit management and grant writing, mostly for organizations serving homeless persons living with mental health and addiction issues.  At 29, I went back to grad school and got my M.S. in clinical mental health counseling. In 2018, I pivoted to private solo clinical practice and have been doing that since. All of these experiences inform my writing.

But my writing journey. Just before my 37th birthday, I saw an ad for the NYC Midnight short story writing contest. I entered, as a gift to myself. I said I was going to win. I didn’t. But I tried again next year, and I did win. 

For a moment, I told myself it was a fluke, that maybe the 7,000 other writers were all just really shitty and I was the best of the worst. In time, I had to accept that I’m a good enough writer.

In the spring of 2021, just before my 40th birthday, I decided I wanted to be a poet. It happened on an airplane, the first flight I’d taken since COVID and decided to apply to MFA programs as my birthday gift for myself. I could do it just for fun, I said. It didn’t mean I’d be pursuing my dream of becoming a writer. 

Spoiler alert: I ended up pursuing my dream of becoming a writer. 

These days: Besides working on my own creative projects, I also teach writing. Each semester, I typically offer a few remote classes through Mid-Maine Community Adult Education. I also offer in-person retreats and workshops at my farm in central Maine. As with my therapy practice, I take an anti-capitalist approach to creative writing instruction; I try to never turn someone away because of their inability to pay. If you want to work with me, but think you can’t afford it, don’t worry. We can work something out; I promise. Barter with me: Design a cover-up tattoo of a goose face and ouroboros to cover up the stupid upside-down “carpe diem” on my right calf when I was 25 and depressed. Bake me a pie. Or do absolutely nothing for me and pay it forward to someone else when you’re in a better financial position.

In the future: In 2021, I started the process of incorporating a nonprofit to bring a wrap-around poetry program to prisons. Which is to say: Poetry behind bars and poetry that continues after release. Poetry as a panacea to trauma and old patterns. Poetry as hope. This was too ambitious of a project to start during my MFA, but I hope to have something concrete going in 2024. If you’re interested in helping with this, please reach out. 

Also in the future: More writing retreats. I’ll post about them here.