About

I fell in love with language early, precociously so. My parents say that I used to draw the alphabet in the drool on my highchair tray, and on my nose while I sucked my thumb. That love of letters, both the individual characters and the words they form, has been the animating force for much of my life. (A few years back, I finally had those 26 magical letters tattooed on my shoulder.)

I’ve spent my entire life in what other people call the Rust Belt: half in a small Indiana city, half in a major Ohio metropolis. My parents were white-collar educators, but my grandfather worked in a foundry for 40 years. The region’s varied landscapes, as well as its many inherent tensions, continue to influence my writing.

Today I’m a copy editor as well as a poet, and I find some striking similarities between the two roles. In both cases, I try to balance clarity and concision, without losing the music of the thing. And in both pursuits, getting it right is harder than it looks.

My poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Carolina Quarterly, december, Delmarva Review, Mud Season Review, The Christian Century, and other publications around the country.

I earned a B.A. in English and writing at Indiana Wesleyan University, and studied linguistics in the graduate program at Ohio State University. Currently, my husband and I live in Columbus, Ohio, where I’m the editorial director at a marketing agency.

Oh — I’m also an inveterate and fanatical crossword solver. (I prefer the Friday and Saturday puzzles from the New York Times and believe that Will Shortz is a national treasure.)