About

What do Bat Boy, Eskimo Pies, magicians, and mayflies have in common? Each of them at some point took up residence in my mind, evoking sensations, images, and words I couldn’t ignore. It’s a delight to sit with such obsessions and guide them into the shape of a poem. Sometimes my poetry focuses in on something weird or quirky or delves into the surreal; perhaps that’s my small attempt at “telling it slant” (a phrase from Emily Dickinson’s poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant”).

I live in Seattle, where I am a freelance writer and editor and an editor for Floating Bridge Press, a publisher and promoter of Washington State poets.

My chapbook Magic Word was published by Pudding House Publications in 2007. Dancing Girl Press published my chapbook What to Make of a Diminished Thing in 2012. My first full-length poetry collection Search for a Velvet-Lined Cape was released by Mayapple Press in early 2013.

Awards and honors include: 2008 semifinalist for the 2008 University of Wisconsin Press Poetry Series contest; finalist for the 2007 St. Lawrence Book Award; semifinalist for the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and the 2009 Crab Orchard Open Competition; semifinalist for the 2005 “Discovery”/The Nation poetry contest.

I took my MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. I’ve taught poetry writing to children and adults; my “poetry appreciation for cats” class never quite took off.