What I Write About, and Why

I am fascinated by personal geography. I think that the landscape where one grows up and lives their lives influences the way that they see the world. In most of my writing, place is its own character. And since I am most interested in myself (aren't we all?), the upper peninsula of Michigan, particularly the Keweenaw, is a location that I return to again and again.  I grew up there, and it is inside my bones, this peninsula on the peninsula. 

While I find fiction, particularly flash fiction, interesting, my love is creative non-fiction.  Memoir is an amazing genre: it combines the imagery of poetry, the storyline of fiction, and your ever-elusive memories, the ones  that shift and move below the surface.  

I'm currently in the midst of a longer project that centers on my grandmothers and great-grandmothers. All these women lived in Munising, Michigan, when I, their first grandchild (or great-grandchild) was born. Through pictures, family stories, and my childhood memories, I am piecing together what their lives would have been like in a remote small town in the U.P. in the early to mid-1900s. And I am (re)learning just how fortunate I was to have all these women in my life. 

Over 25 of my essays, creative non-fiction, and fiction have been published in various places, including The MacGuffin, Brevity Blog, The Dunes Review, and Porcupine Literary. In spring 2025, my writing will appear in Great Lakes Review, Literary Mama, Awakenings Journal, and MER. 

I've taken several creative writing classes and workshops over the past few years with some very smart and gifted writers, including Desiree Cooper, Jerry Dennis, John Mauk, Patricia Ann McNair, and Anne-Marie Oomen, along with Katey Schultz's Monthy Mentorship program. I was a Writer in Residence in Door County, Wisconsin in 2024, and I'll be an Artist in Residence in Taleamor, Indiana in July 2025. 

(See a complete list of my publications and classes here.)

I have spent much of my professional life as a teacher. After getting a Masters degree in English, I taught adult education classes, freelanced as a journalist, did some non-profit work, and was an adjunct at several community colleges and universities. Then I lucked into a full-time teaching gig at Saginaw Valley State University, a regional college in the middle of lower Michigan. I still teach there, part-time. Saginaw is home to Theodore Roethke and Steering Gear, the muddy Titabawasee River, and miles of farmland. 

I have taught literature and composition courses, ran the university writing center, started a few community writing center, and coordinated various projects aimed at helping people write. I've been fortunate to teach in community centers, homeless shelters, correctional facilities, and juvenile detention centers -- anywhere people have something to say.

Now, my husband and I relocated to northern Michigan, in a home nestled on a hill and surrounded by hardwoods. I have the time to write myself, and I do. I also take long walks with our big black lab, Atticus, through the deep snow in the winter and along the winding Cedar River in the summer. My husband cooks, makes jokes, and tells me when it's time to stop worrying. (Answer: it's always time). It's a good life -- one that a little girl in the UP could never have imagined for herself all those years ago.