bio

My path as a writer has been anything but linear. I’ve lived on the outskirts—literally and figuratively—and learned in the ivory tower. A scholarship student at Miami’s richest prep school, and a poor kid at Harvard, I’ve been a hitchhiker and an athlete, mill-town bartender and a software company receptionist, a temp at a mortuary and a college lecturer.

Poetry became my anchor along the way—a way to transform chaos into rhythm, survival into art. Years after leaving Harvard, I returned to poetry with an MFA from UC Irvine.

The landscapes of Miami, New England, Southern California, and Chicago have shaped my life and my work. Born and raised in a rural pocket of Miami, I grew up surrounded by thunderstorms, slash pines, and a sense of beauty balanced precariously on the edge of disaster. This tension—between survival and loss—is at the heart of my writing.

Instability and personal loss have left their mark. I’ve survived the death of my brother, the eye of Hurricane Andrew, and a forest fire that destroyed my childhood home. I’ve navigated undiagnosed ADHD and serious mental health struggles. My work often centers on a speaker striving to wrest control from chaos, finding beauty in danger and meaning in instability.

My poems have appeared in Bennington Review, Boston Review, Fence, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. My chapbooks include Differential Diagnosis from the Santa Anas (Harbor Editions), Inside Skin (Milk and Cake Press), and Live Oak Nearly on Fire (Dancing Girl Press). My two full-length manuscripts have been recognized by Tupelo Press, Sundress Publications, Ghost Peach Press, and Persea Books.

I’ve received the Grand Prize in the Summer Literary Seminars Fiction and Poetry Contest and the Matrix Magazine LitPOP Poetry Award, judged by Eileen Myles. My work has been supported by Everglades National Park, Ragdale Foundation, Soaring Gardens, UC Irvine, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, and more.

As an editor, I’ve worked with writers to shape poetry, stories, books, proposals, and scholarly papers. I’ve served as Editorial Assistant for Seneca Review, Poetry Editor for The Dodge, and Associate Editor for The Rise Up Review. In addition to poetry, I write horror and speculative fiction, poetry book reviews, and middle-grade nonfiction books and graphic novels.

Now, I’m bringing my personal history with mental illness and ADHD to the classroom, working at an alternative therapeutic high school where I work to create spaces for growth and resilience.

When I’m not writing, teaching, or editing, I’m often wandering Chicago’s parks and lakefronts, swimming laps, or making snowmen with my son. My work is rooted in the natural and emotional landscapes that have shaped me, and I’m always searching for the next story I need to tell.