Hi! I’m a writer as my full time job, side gig, and whenever I feel like getting a few sweet rejection letters. I write nonfiction, editorials, magazine articles, poetry, SEO blogs, travel pieces, and more.
I work full time in marketing and communications for an educational institution and previously worked in a similar capacity in health care. I’m also a freelance content writer for technology, healthcare, and tourism companies and I’ve written pieces for Alaska Magazine, High Country News, and Montana Magazine.
I’m originally from southern Idaho, where I spent my childhood trying to find the most remote corners of the high desert with my family and learned a lot about wind chill factors. I earned bachelors degrees from Boise State University in English Writing and Spanish.
In 2015, I graduated with an MFA from the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana after learning that being the Editor-in-Chief for CutBank Literary Magazine means making the team a lot of pozole. I also got some cool stickers while operating the Missoula Smokejumper Visitor Center in the off season.
My ‘first career’ was a study in MREs and Nomex working for the US Forest Service for 14 years across Idaho, California, and Montana. I worked as a Wilderness Ranger, Wildland Firefighter, Aircraft Dispatcher, Fire Lookout, Visitor Information Contact, Writer-Editor, and Office Automations Clerk. My favorite job was working as a wilderness lookout at Jumbo Lookout, which you can read a little about here.
For fun, I like to learn new activities that remind me how my ballet training has not prepared me for lifelong sports like rafting, hunting, backcountry skiing and holiday bike parades.
Awards:
2019 ’20 Under 40′ Young Professionals to Watch in the Flathead Valley
2019 Accreditation in Public Relations
2015 Brainerd Foundation Fellowship in Environmental Writing
2015 Academy of American Poets Award, “Which is to Say“
2014 Nettie Weber Travel Award Recipient, University of Montana
2014 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, Finalist in Poetry
Publications:
(links available on Creative Writing pages)
Nonfiction
2020 Alaska Magazine, “It All Starts at the Yukon Bar,” Forthcoming May 2020
2016 High Country News, “Wildfire in the West Has Become an Uncontrollable Force,” Writers on the Range, (syndicated to publications across the west) July 5, 2016
2016 Montana Magazine, “CDT Montana: An Outdoor Enthusiast Volunteer Mecca,” February 2016
2015 Orion Magazine, “Place Where You Live: Jumbo Lookout,” November 2015
2015 Tahoma Literary Review, “Nature Writing, Undefined”
2015 Montana Wilderness Association Website, various blog posts (please see Nonfiction, under Creative Writing)
2013 Conserve Montana, “Out From Behind the Screen: Wilderness Changes Lives,” 2013 Conservation Story Contest Honorable Mention, November 2013
2013 High Country News, “Let It Burn: The Challenge of Learning to Live with Fire,” Writers on the Range, (syndicated to publications across the west) July 2, 2013
2013 Assessment for a Wild and Scenic River, US Forest Service and National Park Service, January 2013
2009 High Country News, “Out of the Nest and Into a Tent,” Writers on the Range, February 9, 2009
Poetry
2017 Crab Orchard Review, “Obligation, North,” “Obligation, East,” “Obligation, South,” Obligation, West,” August 2017
2015 Tahoma Literary Review, “Den,” December 2015
2015 Ghost Town, “Autobiography of Night,” “Which is to Say,” “Before Going Back,” October 2015
2015 Bellingham Review, “Now, Hunger,” March 2015
2015 West Trade Review, “You Are One Hundred,” “Rock Garden,” March 2015
2015 Chatsworth Press Lonely Whale Anthology, “Basalt,” “Packing,” “Types of Evenings,” “Frost Moon,” February 2015
2014 Cascadia Review, “Telling,” “Coordinates,” “Twenty-Seven,” “Driftwood Blanched,” October 2014
2011 Whitefish Review, “Evaporation,” Volume Five, August 2011
2011 The Sun Magazine, “Paying Attention,” Readers Write, July 2011
2011 Cirque Journal, “The Most Silent You’ve Ever Seen Me,” Volume II, June 2011
