I think about imagination and creativity and its place in our fast-paced world. For me, writing has always been a way of slowing down. The music and the layers of a poem or story are something to savor. My favorite writers (and they change regularly) can be read over and over. I’ve been a therapist, a professor, a waitress, a medical records clerk, and a writer-in-residence. I’ve been a writer as long as I can remember. I strive to write in a way that reflects an emotional truth, if not an actual truth. I am the author of two collections of short fiction, most recently Impossibly Small Spaces (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2018), four collections of poetry; most recently Necessary Silence (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2013), and a collaborative collection with Irish poet and writer Geraldine Mills, The Other Side of Longing (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press 2011). My honors include a Surdna Arts Teaching Fellowship, the Elizabeth Shanley Gerson Lecture at University of Connecticut (with Geraldine Mills), the Hugo House New Works Fiction Award, and Pushcart nominations in both fiction and poetry.