I’m a poet from the Midwest who grew up on Lake Michigan, who as a child took long road trips over flat horizons, and who thinks farm ruins are among the world’s most beautiful landscapes. I write about the places and people that make us who we are—hometown landscapes and families—and how, when they leave us or we leave them, our identities rupture and then re-form.

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I received my poetry education in the Midwest, too: a bachelor’s from Knox College in Illinois and an MFA from Purdue University in Indiana, where I studied with poets Marianne Boruch, Donald Platt, and Mary Leader.

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My first collection of poems, Florence, was published by Sundress Publications in October 2024. I am a past winner of the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, and my work has appeared in many other journals, including Prairie Schooner, Western Humanities Review, American Literary Review, Arkansas International, PRISM, and Verse Daily. In 2018 I co-founded an online literary magazine, Peatsmoke Journal, which has been honored with awards and recognition, including having had two poems republished and read on the podcast The Slowdown. 

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Currently, I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I teach writing, poetry, and disability studies at the University of Tennessee. I also direct the Young Writers Institute, a free creative writing workshop program for Knoxville-area high school students.