I grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1993. I've been writing stories ever since I was about twelve. I worked on the literary magazine in high school, took whatever writing workshops I could in college, then after college when I was living in Northampton, Massachusetts I participated in an Amherst Writers & Artists writing workshop (the same method I use) for several years. The focus of my own writing has always been short fiction, although I've also written poetry and tried my hand at a novel.

 

In 1997 I moved to Chapel Hill. After I got settled, I began looking for a writing workshop to join, one similar to the one I'd been a part of in Massachusetts. To my disappointment I discovered that there were few choices, and that most of the workshops in the area focused on critiquing finished work, not on generating and supporting new work, which is what I was looking for. That's when I decided I needed to start my own group. I took a workshop-leader training in the spring of 2000 with Pat Schneider, the woman who founded the Amherst Writers & Artists workshop method. I've been leading workshops using this method ever since.

 

I'm also an editorial associate at The Sun magazine. The Sun is a monthly literary magazine that has been published in Chapel Hill for more than thirty years. I have worked in many capacities at the magazine in the seven years I've been there; now I am the proofreader, a manuscript reader, and I compile some of the nuts-and-bolts sections of each issue.

 

In 2007 I was awarded a fellowship for short fiction by the North Carolina Arts Council.

 

I live in Chatham County, outside of Pittsboro in a rebuilt farmhouse that my carpenter husband rescued from complete decay. His two teenage children live with us part time, and we have a full-time dog and two full-time cats. After my family, writing is my first love, and my garden is a close second.