Image by Kat Simecek of Salt & Stone Adventure Photography

• Iowa City resident since 2012

• bookseller for Prairie Lights in Iowa City, IA (since June 2024)

• 2026 finalist for the Aurora Polaris creative nonfiction award with Trio House Press

• active member of Iowa City’s Porchlight community & was named a finalist for their first-ever Iowa Writer’s Residency (2025), then received the residency in 2026

• holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Montana (‘24)

• the 2023-24 Editor in Chief of the University of Montana’s 50-plus-year-old literary magazine, CutBank

• a 2024 fellow of the LA Review of Books online Publication Workshop

• taught at Tsinghua International School in Beijing from 2018-2020 (you can read about my final days abroad at the onset of the pandemic here)

• taught at the University of Iowa from 2012-2018

• grew up in central Ohio, near Columbus