About

I’m not your average academic and educator.

I came to writing and languages through obsession, through an intrinsic need to learn, create, and analyze human experience, preoccupied by possibility. Raised a native English speaker in a southern American household, foreign cultural experiences and varied linguistic expression was limited, and summers at my grandparent’s house served as my window to the outside world. They were the smartest and most interesting people I knew, their home a portal to places beyond the moss-laden live oak trees ornamenting my humid childhood landscape. 

Books and writing were my medium. I started writing around eight on a Brother Selectric typewriter that my mother gave me and haven’t stopped since, first publishing poems around age ten. But I’m not a natural born academic. I’m a rule breaker who still doesn’t like being told what to do–a punk kid who dropped out of school in tenth grade to make whatever I wanted on my terms. I came back to school when I found it valuable to me, and went on to study long enough at the graduate level to earn a doctorate more than once over. Formally, I’ve trained as a homebirth midwife, and hold degrees in English, linguistics, and writing, with concentrations in language education, history, poetry, translation, and creative non-fiction. But most valuable to me? Being an infiltrator, never much like anyone around me, and working in unexpected places. 

I’ve taught myself Russian and Japanese as an adult through translation, and wholeheartedly believe that’s not an anomaly. You can do whatever you want with a solid reason and enough drive to figure it out. And hard work. Getting off your phone and using social media intentionally helps, too.

I’ve been a lot of things in my life: a mother to many children, some grown now, a midwifery student and birthworker, a seamstress working in textiles and embroidery, an educator, a community organizer, a wife, a lover, a good and bad friend. I’ve ridden the weirdo-no-one-likes to alt-tattoo-model pipeline. Recently, I’m a snake-obsessed divorcee living in north Philly. Most of the year, I teach emotional support in special education for grades 6-8, spending my days with kids just like me, feeling challenged by authority and disorganized in boring spaces. But at the heart of everything, I’m always a writer and lover of what language makes possible, investigating, processing, and illuminating experiences. To make sense of things, share words, shroud themes in hopes obscured embers spark something in someone who will make it better, whatever it is. I like games, investigation, straight-talking, rabbit-holes, clarity, and mystery. Contrast. Dual truths. Most of all, I like feeling challenged. 

At the root of my work and mentorship, I’m a kind-hearted interrogator who will push you to work harder and want more from your writing because I love people and creativity. For you and your work, not because I think you’re right or wrong. Those binaries don’t exist; language and literature are whatever you want them to be. My language correction style models back function through conversation, not correction, so you come to realize missteps on your own. That’s how we learn best–when we realize ourselves what we love, or what we could change, strengthen, or do differently through collaboration with a community of people who hold varying experiences and lenses, with people we respect and enjoy. 

And some things I love? Heavy black tattoos. Femininity. Pushing my pain tolerance. Country music. Punk and hardcore shows. Hip hop. Large snakes. Small animals. Poems that make me feel as though I shouldn’t be watching but can’t look away. Solitude. Community. Graffiti. Urban photography. Someone else picking the movie. Sleeping in the woods in the backseat of my Jeep for a week’s time. Living off nothing but peaches. Insomnia. Sleeping in late with someone who sleeps better than me. Feeling uncomfortable. Listening to young children talk, especially those who’ve yet to touch a smartphone. 

Voltas. Transitions. Confident turns in another direction. 

I still write on typewriters, by the way, if you ever wanna get nerdy about old stuff. Find me on socials here, but don’t be surprised when everything rings visually true.

Education & Experience:

Formal CV with publications available upon request. Please contact me.

  • Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature. Graduated with high honors.
  • One year in the Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics program at UMass Boston.
  • Master of Fine Arts: Poetry and Literary Translation (Russian to English) program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
  • Completed an additional year of advanced study in Creative Non-Fiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts to develop hybrid manuscript.
  • Center for the Arts + Social Justice Fellowship Recipient for 2025 for my writing at the intersection of language and identity, focusing on Ukrainian war narrative.
  • Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society Member.
  • TEFL certified since 2016, with experience tutoring adults learning English from 2016 to present.
  • Italki ESOL tutor from March 2019-Present.
  • Upper Elementary assistant (Grades 4-6) in a Montessori classroom from September 2021-February 2022.
  • Lead Adolescent Guide (Grades 7-9) in an Adolescent Montessori classroom from February 2022-2023.
  • Special Education, Emotional Support Teacher (School District of Philadelphia) from May 2024-Present.
  • Certified in the State of Florida to teach English (Grades 6-12) and Special Education (Grades K-12) since 2020.
  • Personal experience learning foreign languages through self-study. 
  • I’ve worked with talented writers along the way, in workshop, or as faculty advisors, and owe gratitude to their knowledge and mentorship: V. G. Anderson, Richard Jackson, Betsy Sholl, Philip Metres, Natasha Saje, Sue William Silverman, Leslie Ullman, Chachi Hauser, Bianca Stone. My work and approaches are shaped and grow in good company and community.