Writing

Cross-stitch pattern from Craft mag.

​"The sound of the story comes first." -Grace Paley

I've been writing since third grade, when a short story about squirrels overtaking a slumber party won third prize in a local writing contest. My writing post-primary school has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Sauce Magazine, the Durham-Herald Sun, the Tucson Weekly, National Public Radio Intern Edition (2005), and the Teach For America Media Newsblast. I have been nominated for awards from the James Beard Foundation (2010), the North Carolina Press Association (2002), and I won the $12,000 O.O. McIntyre Fellowship from the Missouri School of Journalism in 2000. I graduated with an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona in May 2006. While I miss seeing the ocotillo in bloom and savory-tart ceviche, I love living in Saint Louis, Missouri. 

Here are a few examples of my writing:

Creative writing  

• "December 18, 2009" for Past Ten (December 2019)
• "My One, My Only" in Brevity (May 2019) and Creative Nonfiction's "Sunday Short Reads" (July 2019)
• "Before the House Stirs" for the "Life in 10 Minutes Project" (May 2019)
• Short essays and feature articles for The Common Reader ​since August 2018-August 2019; two pieces nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2018): "Everyday Wilderness" and "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" 
• "Eggs in One Basket" for The Story Collider ("true, personal stories about science") via St. Louis Public Radio (March 7, 2018)
• "The Origins of Hunger" in New South - flash creative nonfiction (Winter 2018)
• "What Does It Mean to Heart This?" creative nonfiction in Issue 23 of Midwestern Gothic (October 2016)
• "The Terrible Beauty of Midwestern Road Rage" lyric essay in Issue 02 of The New Territory Magazine (September 2016)
• One of twenty writers nationwide to be accepted into Iota: the conference of short prose (August 16-19, 2016) on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, just outside of Lubec, Maine
• "What Blue Tastes Like," micro-essay, published in "EAT: A Literature + Photography Installation" at Centre College's Norton Center for the Arts in Danville, Kentucky, mid-May 2016
• "After the Final No," flash fiction, published in Paddle Shots: A River Pretty Anthology, Vol. 2 in April 2016
• Contributing writer to the University of Missouri Press / Missouri School of Journalism anthology, Words Matter: Writing to Make a Difference (April 2016): personal essay, "Soul Train on Mute"
• One of five finalists for The Southeast Review's World's Best Short-Short Story Contest 2015; judged by Robert Olen Butler: publication of "Man Lace" in Volume 34.1 (2016)
• Top 30 Finalist for Creative Nonfiction's "Waiting" contest (out of 650 submissions), Spring 2015
• One of five finalists for The Southeast Review's World's Best Short-Short Story Contest 2014; judged by Robert Olen Butler: publication of "Donna" in Volume 33.1 (2015)
• Tiny Truth via Twitter, Creative Nonfiction, Fall/Winter 2011, Issue 43 (Reviewed in New Pages): "No pants on, hollers the 86-year-old landlord to his tenant from the faded blue La-Z-Boy. "Just leave the check at the door." 
• Tiny Truth via Twitter, Creative Nonfiction, Summer 2011, Issue 42: "The tornado was selectively cruel: Maggie's yellow dahlias and peonies bloomed. Yet lingerie & bedsheets swayed in the branches."
• The Rant Issue of the Tucson Weekly: "Tubas, The Absence of, in Pop Music"
• Honorable Mention for Chusma House Publication's First Annual Short Story Contest (2004): "Gretel Grows Up"
• Top 20 Finalist for New Letters' Dorothy Capon Prize for Best Essay (2004)

Academic writing

• Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, Fall 2013, Issue 18.1, An Interview with Dr. William Endres
• Midwest Writing Centers Association Newsletter, Spring 2011, Wanting a Scooter, Drinking Root Beer, and Writing Center Praxis

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Book reviews 

• Tucson Weekly, March 16, 2006: Review of Christine Granados' collection of short stories, Brides and Sinners in El Chuco (University of Arizona Press)
• Tucson Weekly, June 15, 2006: Review of Demetria Martínez' essay collection, Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana (University of Oklahoma Press)

Food writing: Personal essays & restaurant reviews

• Sauce Magazine, March 1, 2009, The Procrastinator's Guide to Baking - personal essay nominated by then managing editor of Sauce Magazine, Katie O'Connor, for a 2010 James Beard Award in writing
• Sauce Magazine, October 2008, Very Sharp Knives (essay)
• Tucson Weekly, February 9, 2006, Bread Hunt! (review)

Interviews

• Tucson Weekly, April 20, 2006, T Q&A with Spring Ulmer 
• Tucson Weekly, March 30, 2006, T Q&A with Dr. Gary E. Schwartz
• Tucson Weekly, May 4, 2006, T Q&A with author and journalist Alan Weisman

Social media and blogging

• 140-character microessay via Twitter, Creative Nonfiction, Fall/Winter 2011, Issue 43 (Reviewed in New Pages)
• 140-character microessay via Twitter, Creative Nonfiction, Summer 2011, Issue 42
• When Mom Was My Age, #39, media professor and speaker Jane Friedman's website, July 18, 2011

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