Just a few words
My writing is shaped by a range of experience. In my non-professional years, I worked as a bicycle mechanic, a movie projectionist, a crossing guard, a groundskeeper. I sold term life insurance, fresh baked cookies, and handmade decoupage. I waited tables, serving Mexican food, Chinese, and homemade pizza. I assisted nurses and doctors in an emergency room and pharmacists in a hospital dispensary. I served as a matchmaker, finding homes for shelter dogs, careers for uncertain youth, and housing for people in transition. My hands are worn from planting fruit trees, laying brick patios, tiling hearths, cutting trails, and getting tangled in all manner of projects outside and in. I've fixed up and sold too many houses to count. I've loved dogs and other nonverbal beings more than is sensible.
As I earned degrees in philosophy, history, and writing, I also gained experience as a writer, an editor, and a teacher. I've taught high school dropouts how to earn their GEDs, high school teens and college freshmen how to understand the Middle Ages, Japanese how to speak English idiomatically, young children how to listen to stories, prison inmates how to read, and college youth how to write. I've edited books, journal articles, newsletters, and websites. I've learned that teaching, writing, and doing go hand-in-hand, each informing the other.
Writing is how I process my thoughts, craft my arguments, embellish my world. Words record my day even as my memory tries to forget or changes the shape of that day. Hence my writing is a snapshot of a moment that would otherwise be lost or altered to fit some new moment. Writing helps keep me honest, or at least helps me edit what would otherwise be a verbal jumble.
I now run a college writing center, teach composition, and in the summer work with high school teachers to improve their teaching. I also play music. I always welcome a new adventure, so drop me a line.
I'd like to thank the women of Nimrod, my writing group, and my family and friends for giving me encouragement and feedback.
As I earned degrees in philosophy, history, and writing, I also gained experience as a writer, an editor, and a teacher. I've taught high school dropouts how to earn their GEDs, high school teens and college freshmen how to understand the Middle Ages, Japanese how to speak English idiomatically, young children how to listen to stories, prison inmates how to read, and college youth how to write. I've edited books, journal articles, newsletters, and websites. I've learned that teaching, writing, and doing go hand-in-hand, each informing the other.
Writing is how I process my thoughts, craft my arguments, embellish my world. Words record my day even as my memory tries to forget or changes the shape of that day. Hence my writing is a snapshot of a moment that would otherwise be lost or altered to fit some new moment. Writing helps keep me honest, or at least helps me edit what would otherwise be a verbal jumble.
I now run a college writing center, teach composition, and in the summer work with high school teachers to improve their teaching. I also play music. I always welcome a new adventure, so drop me a line.
I'd like to thank the women of Nimrod, my writing group, and my family and friends for giving me encouragement and feedback.
