A Writer, Storyteller, & Poet
First and foremost, I am a writer and I always will be. From a young age, I was writing novels and poetry, weaving stories for my sister during bedtime, creating plays with neighborhood kids. An avid bookworm growing up, stories became my refuge, helping me to learn empathy and see others as protagonists in their lives. My capacity to see the world through a writer’s eyes has probably saved my life.
Pursuing that love of stories, it was only natural that I graduated from a small private college in downtown Chicago with a degree in communications. After college, I moved to Colorado and found what I thought was my dream job working in online marketing at Penguin Random House—one of the Big Six in publishing. There, I learned even more about high-quality storytelling. As I soaked in the wisdom of the editors I befriended—participating in meetings where books were dissected and developed with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel—I honed in on what it meant to position, brand, and market through stories.
I also developed this blog, which has seen over 1,665,000 views since its inception in early 2011 (although it has changed and been re-envisioned several times).
A Professional Freelance Writer and Poet
Due to several unpredictable twists in my own story, I had to quit my dream job in publishing and embarked upon my own entrepreneurial journey in 2015 as a freelancer. For 5 years, I’ve written, edited, and taken photos for a living. Although the journey was tough at points, it was also been one of the most rewarding journeys I have ever embarked upon.
During my freelance journey, I was the coproducer of a music video; the photographer and writer for newspapers and magazines, individuals, and businesses; and the managing editor of an amazing publication called Colorado Collective.
One of the things I’m most proud of is the fact that I am a published poet who has had work performed all across the country at art galleries, podcasts, and YouTube channels in a variety of contexts, and my poetry has touched people across the globe. Many poems are on this site, so explore them here.
You can also watch a few spoken word performances here…
Featured Photo by Becca Howard
