My Journey

Way back in fifth-grade, during creative hour, I discovered the ease and ecstasy of written expression.

That joy didn't disappear — it just waited. When my children were small, I wrote personal essays and articles for Mothers of Multiples and Montessori News, and later served as assistant editor for Hudson Valley Parent. For twenty-five years, I taught special education students, always keeping a notebook within arm's reach and staying connected to a writing group, even when the classroom took most of what I had to give.

Then came the workshops with Ulster County Poet Laureate Kate Hymes. In the cozy living room of her New Paltz home, surrounded by fellow writers, something that had started in grade school came alive again. I remember the specific feeling of sitting in that room — not practicing a skill, but returning to something that had been mine all along.

That feeling didn't fade once the workshop ended. It led me to the Writing Institute, then to evening classes, and eventually to a decision I'd circled for years: in 2020, I went back to school and earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. It wasn't a departure from the rest of my life — it was what all of it had been pointing toward.

My prose is published at Five on the Fifth, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Flash Fiction Magazine, trampset, JMWW, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. I’m a writing mentor for incarcerated citizens because I believe all voices should be heard and lifted.

To borrow a quote from the late, wonderful Gloria Steinem: "Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel like I should be doing something else." That's exactly where I am now. The act of writing — and rewriting, and refining — isn't something I fit around my life anymore. It's the thing the rest of my life makes room for.