About

I’m a former journalist who always believed that I would stick to the facts. After several years working as a newspaper editor in San Francisco, I went to grad school and earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Emerson College in Boston. For my degree I wrote a travel memoir entitled “Kimchee and Barbed Wire: A Year in South Korea.” Essays of mine have appeared in the Minnetonka Review and in the anthology Gardening at a Deeper Level, published by Garden House Press in 2004. I was a 2007 finalist in the William Allen Creative Nonfiction Contest held by The Journal (Ohio State University).

Since completing my degree, I’ve surprised myself by feeling constrained by the facts. I started writing fiction. In 2010, I was a finalist in Glimmer Train‘s May Short Story Award for New Writers contest, and I was shortlisted for this year’s Fish Publishing Short Story Prize, judged by Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell. My short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Clare and Unstuck.

I’ve been blogging here at Fog City Writer since before I started my MFA program in 2004. A lot has changed since then (see my timeline) but I still write about authors, the writing process, books, revising, balancing parenting with writing, the workshop and MFA experience, and about creativity and finding inspiration. I sometimes write and post short memoir pieces as a way of kickstarting my own process, and hopefully, inspiring others.

For more about me, check out the About Me posts, or visit my web site.