In February of 2005, I had been granted a month’s residency at Vermont Studio Center. My best friend / lover had been found dead in an alley less than two months before. In a clapboard cabin sheltering me from negative temperatures, I listened to the wood particles encouraging me to settle in; I watched the cursor blink for nearly 90 minutes.

And then I wrote the first page, which was the moment of her traumatic death, and then I wept, in a way that felt clean, and I watched my fingers poke and tap and glide through 385 pages in twelve days.

The wisdom I’d been humbled to receive during my MFA program:

How to be a writer?

Ass in chair.  

How to write the hardest stuff?

Sit with it in silence until you feel something shift.

‍Where to begin?  

The sacred practice of dumping: permission to write crap, to write short hand, to draw eyes and faces if necessary; imagine this as upending a box of wayward shards of your story on a table (it is a jigsaw, I promise).

I am a Storyteller—of my own and of others who gift me the chance to midwife or faithfully compose their truths to share with the wonky, aflame, world. I have intensively edited thousands of nonfiction manuscripts, from UNC to Juvenile Detentions to Barcelona’s literary community. I learned, in real time, at 23, in a UNC classroom full of 18-20 year olds, to bring compassion and trauma-informed presence. My students taught me, everywhere I went, about healing and growth via telling and polishing one’s story, especially the alchemy of painful or dark material into something beautiful that honors survival, resilience, and pluck.

As a complex trauma specialist psychotherapist, I have been blessed to continue to learn about the brilliance and courage of people that choose not to blink; to look squarely at the wounds they carry. For fourteen years, I’ve been learning from them; for 14 years before that I learned from writers. I am thrilled to have the capacity to listen deeply with compassion; to supercharge others’ stories with my curiosity and skills as a clinician.

Also, I ride electric dirt bikes through the infinite webs of National Forest roads; I like to sleep under the stars in my pickup’s bed; I am only truly fulfilled by consuming, conjuring, and supporting the sacred Storytelling we humans must do.