I received my MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa. Between undergrad and graduate school, I lived in Portland, OR, and worked for education-oriented nonprofits. At an organization called Free Geek, I taught volunteers how to build computers in a workshop-style setting. This experience laid the foundation for my teaching style in the more traditional academic settings. It taught me that the most important aspect of understanding a complex concept, is first, demystifying it. Building a computer or writing an argumentative essay isn't scary or hard; they just need to be broken down into smaller parts, and then anyone can do it. In Portland, I also worked with under-served high school and college age students to help them to achieve their educational, personal, and professional goals. A large part of this was English tutoring and helping students, almost exclusively English Language Learners, to write and revise essays for their coursework. This was a very important and gratifying work for me. I learned a lot about what kinds of teaching strategies were being used in the classrooms that my students were in and realized that I could improve upon them greatly, if I could just make the subject matter interesting and relatable. For the past two years, I have been teaching Interpretation of Literature and Creative Writing Workshop to undergraduate students. I am proud to say that my student evaluations were consistently positive. I have a deep love for literature and writing that I am excited to share with students. I can help with literature, reading strategies, comprehension, essay writing, and essay revision.

Reading, writing poetry, biking, and pop culture.