Welcome. Thank you for stopping by my webpage and blog.

I studied at Vassar College (B.A., history), the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health (MPH, epidemiology), and Bennington College (MFA, nonfiction). I received the Bennington Prize in Nonfiction in 2017 for an excerpt from my in-progress memoir, “The Rag and Bone Man.”

I’m a native of Wisconsin and have lived in Los Angeles for over 23 years. My writing has appeared in literary journals including Longreads, Cleaver Magazine, The End of the World, and this piece in the online journal Dovetail. I’ve also read and performed my work onstage at the Los Angeles storytelling venues Expressing Motherhood, Spark Off Rose, The Moth, and Strangers (KCRW/NPR). I’m a fan of these and other onstage and radio shows like This American Life, and Pop-Up Magazine, UnFictional (KCRW/NPR), and of course, great nonfictional and fictional stories on the page.

I have worked as a medical writer and editor for nonprofit medical research and pharmaceutical clients, working on therapeutics in cholesterol reduction, dermatology, smoking cessation, and oncology. My medical interests are mental health, nutrition, exercise, physical fitness, and cancer prevention. My literary interests are varied, and I like reading memoir, fiction, and political analysis and history. Lately I’ve been reading and having in-real-life conversations about how to build a better and more inclusive democracy.

The miscellany: Reading was my first love. My first human love was Mr. Rogers. And my second human love was Carl Sagan. I live with my husband and three children. I have a love/not-so-much love* relationship with Los Angeles, but I’ll probably never leave.

* love the beauty and the people, hate the traffic and the inequality