About

Bruno Schulz's words are a touchstone for me. It's always my project to follow the threads, to notice the swallows of words, images, events as they rise in flocking patterns, to see them wheel and then splinter into new and unexpected directions. Imaginative but astute attention is my goal whether I'm writing cultural criticism, poetry, a personal essay, or fiction. 

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I have a multidisciplinary practice that includes fiction and poetry writing, cultural criticism, and independent curation. I earned my MFA from the University of Virginia in 1997. I've been a contributing editor for Art Papers since 1992 and write for an array of arts and culture magazines. My lengthy and happy teaching career in higher education included developing and teaching in a creative writing track, founding an ambitious undergraduate lit mag (Mistake House Magazine), leading five semester-long study abroad programs to Prague and the Czech Republic with painter and art writer Paul Ryan, and mentoring more wonderful students than I could name here. From 2006-08, I served as the first director of Washington and Lee University's Staniar Gallery. The contours of my practice  expanded in new ways when I became a certified yoga teacher in 2019 (Yoga Alliance RYT 200) and completed my certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University in May 2024. I am the former Cornelius Ayer and Muriel Prindle Wood Professor of the Humanities at Principia College, where I am now Professor Emerita of English.

 

Recently retired from full-time teaching, I turn my professional practice to writing, teaching, and serving in a world deeply in need of attention, integrity, imagination, and courage. ​