I am a lifelong writer who has participated in various critique and writing groups over the last 20 years. I was born in Evanston, Illinois, grew up in the Midwest, studied in the East, and then moved to Germany after finishing college, where I taught English as a foreign language for nearly a dozen years. After returning to the States, I got my M.A. in English from Butler University and then went on to get a Ph.D. in in Rhetoric and Composition from Ball State University. I directed the Writing Center at the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford for four years, after a stint as interim Writing Center director at Eastern Oregon University, and now I live, teach, and write in the Catskills at SUNY Sullivan Community College.