Hi! I’m a writer and teacher from the Washington, D.C. area, currently based in Paris, France.

I’m lucky enough to spend my time doing work that I love: writing fiction for young readers and teaching children and adults how to unleash their creativity onto the page. I have years of experience as a middle-school English teacher, community-based and school-based creative writing workshop leader, and university professor (teaching creative writing at both the undergraduate and master’s level at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas and, currently, at Sciences Po – Le Havre).
I hold a B.A. in English with a minor in Biology from the University of Chicago, and an M.F.A. in Fiction from the New Writers Project at the University of Texas at Austin. During my graduate studies, I received a fellowship from the Michener Center for Writers and served as associate fiction editor of Bat City Review. I’m a three-time shortlistee for the international Bath Children’s Novel Award and have won the Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award, the F(r)iction Short Story Contest, the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award for Fiction, and the middle-grade category of the Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing. My work can be found in Highlights, Hunger Mountain, AQUILA Magazine, F(r)iction, Cosmonauts Avenue, Lunch Ticket, and other publications. You can read more about me in this interview from the Bath Children’s Novel Award.