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“My educational journey began with a B.A. in Theater from the University of Puget Sound where I acted, directed, and began writing plays. After two years in Los Angeles, working first for the Director’s Guild and then Sundance, I moved to Waltham, MA, to pursue my MFA in Playwriting at Brandeis University.
After my M.F.A., I moved to New York where I taught writing at Baruch College and Fordham University while doing theater. I moved to Cape Cod in 2009 where I taught writing at Cape Cod Community College and was later hired as their Coordinator of Learning Resources. On the Cape, I continued my environment and theater work by performing as Green Girl for the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Green Schools and presenting two plays at Boston Greenfest. I enjoyed academic support administration but really missed the classroom. This led me to pursue my Ph.D. at UConn while living in Andover, CT. During this time, I got married and had two children.
My dissertation focused on the food-centered community writing and performance project Write Your Roots which partnered with CLiCK, a non-profit food business incubator in North Windham, to guide a group of community members in writing original monologues about their relationship to food. We performed the monologues at the Windham Town Hall and CliCK in summer 2017.
In 2019, I was hired at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, so my family of four moved to Pawtucket, RI, to be closer to my job. After weathering the pandemic as two parents working full time with two young children, then having a third child, our family decided to we should return to Connecticut to be closer to family for support. I hoped to find a position close to home, but in the meantime took a visiting position at Roger Williams University as it afforded the opportunity to work in a Writing department and teach at a liberal arts university.
In summer 2025, I organized a third Write Your Roots with sponsorship from the Willimantic Food Co-op and the Eastern Connecticut State University Department of Film, Theater and Communication. Alycia Bright-Holland co-directed our performance of five original monologues on the subject of changing one's diet following a medical diagnosis at the Delmonte Bernstein Studio Theater.
Last spring, when my dissertation advisor Tom Deans shared with me the job ad for my current position, I was thrilled about the chance to teach so close to home and in the town where I had carried out two community writing projects. Being hired felt like a homecoming.”
“I'm teaching English 100 and English 100P. I hope that my students learn how to write purposefully, coherently and rhetorically. I also hope that, regardless of their background, they learn that they have the right to be heard, command respect and be given credibility when writing or speaking for an audience beyond the classroom. I hope they learn skills that support a conception of themselves as people with things to say and the ability to say them.”
I try to balance setting expectations for growth with never making a student feel badly for a mistake or a life event getting in the way of class.
“I’m currently writing a book that looks at the history of rhetoric, oratory and writing instruction from the earliest days of American colleges to the 1910s, when speech as a discipline seceded from English to form its own department at colleges across the country. I’m also a playwright and I facilitate a group in my hometown called the Coventry Playwrights Collective. We just performed a staged reading of a new short play inspired by the sculptures of David Hayes at the Hayes Sculpture Fields. My newest writing project is called Searching for Tony Kushner.”
“Pleasant, cozy, diverse, laid-back, inviting. The campus culture feels accepting, creative and sporty. Maybe I say sporty because I walk by the sports fields every day on my way to the parking garage! But also, I often see students out playing basketball or going for a run and I have a lot of student athletes in my classes who have written about athletics. Sports teams feel like an important part of the campus culture and a positive part of students' experience here. Especially for first years, I see how it provides a sense of belonging and pride in their school.”
“Meet students where they are. Every single class is different. Every student is different. I believe in taking time to get to know students as individuals and create a class community where we appreciate each person and what they bring to our class and to our learning process. Life is hard. Staying committed is hard, I appreciate that. I don’t want to make it harder for even one student. I try to balance setting expectations for growth with never making a student feel badly for a mistake or a life event getting in the way of class.”
“Read, read and read some more. Know what the conversations are, have an opinion, write it out, revise it, share it. In writing, you have to get comfortable with putting your work out there, but you want to do so being aware of the wider conversation around, whatever it is you're discussing. Showing you know that conversation builds your ethos and helps ensure people will give you the time of day (a hotter commodity than ever).”
“Whatever debt you take on, have a reasonable pay-off plan in mind before you take it on. Also, don’t rush into graduate school if that is something you’re thinking of. Youth is precious. It’s worth more than money, take time to enjoy it.”