I started college as a Biology major, convinced by my parents that I could never make a living as a writer, and I was fascinated by science, particularly the emerging field of genetic engineering which seemed to promise all manner of fantastical, futuristic possibilities. I soon realized the reality of it was another matter. Every day in lab I would hunch over a microscope I couldn’t focus well enough to see the cell cultures on the slide, and whenever I tried to get closer to the viewing lens of the microscope, my glasses (this was before I wore contact lenses) would crack soundly against it. Somewhere toward the end of my second year, I realized that I would never make a decent geneticist – that in fact, it was the idea of recombining DNA to create new things that I was in love with, and not the grinding repetition and posture-killing labor such creation demanded. I came back to myself then, to the words I’d always loved, and began to believe that writers were, at least metaphorically, scientists who played with the DNA of language to imagine new things into being. I never looked back.
Accolades:
- Finalist for the Wick and the Autumn House Poetry Prizes, Hayden Carruth Award for Poetry
- NISOD Award for Excellence in Teaching
- Semi-Finalist for Florida Community College Teacher of the Year
Publications:
- Atlanta Review
- Cimarron Review
- Crazyhorse
- Rattle
- Stone Canoe
Poem:
Posted on Craigslist
Hi – I am in need of a little person
just to come to a BBQ on Monday night.
My friend totally loves little
people and would get the biggest
kick out of meeting and being
able to hang out with one.
We will provide transportation
to and from Mariposa which
is about one hour from Fresno –
near Yosemite. If you’d rather,
we will pay for a nice hotel for you
and you can drive up to Yosemite the next day!
This is non-sexual, no stripping,
my friend is a daycare provider
and this is a family BBQ.
If you want, no one even needs
to know you are being paid!
Please respond ASAP.
