Her route into the world of poetry was circuitous. Trained as a political theorist, she struggled to finish her Ph.D., which was long-stalled due to class and emotional issues besetting many first-gen college students. Ironically, she was able to discover her voice in writing theory through writing fiction, which, always a scribbler, she had begun to write in her thirties. And in the days when journals and small presses responded with critical suggestions penned on their hard copy rejection slips, she was able to use fiction editors’ generous recognition and advice to begin writing poetry in her early forties.
It was through writing and publishing poetry that she was able to back into academic writing and finally finish her dissertation. She fell in love with the medium and its communities and has been in fifth-gear with poetry ever since.
She has recent poems in New Words Press, Black Fox Review, Non-Binary Review, Superpresent, Blind Field, Poesis, Cape Rock: Poetry, Mortar, Local Nomad, Columbia Poetry Review, moria, Shifter, BlazeVOX, etc.
Her third poetry book, Don’t Bother, is an elegy for a dear friend and was published by Finishing Line Press in October; her second book, Wonderful Terrible, was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Co. in September 2013; and her first poetry book, Feet First, won the Sinclair Prize and was published by Evening Street Press in November 2010.
She also has three chapbooks—Just Kidding, which was published by Finishing Line in September 2018; Snap, which was published by Crisis Chronicles Press in September 2017; and Cleaving, which won First Prize at Poets Corner Press in 2007.