A little more about me:
I taught university creative writing classes for over 15 years, wrote editorial critiques and commentary on stacks and stacks of poems, struggled to find new ways to say Show, don’t tell! and Avoid cliché! and Wow! What an image! I had the privilege of serving as the City of Victoria’s inaugural poet laureate, promoting the literary arts in the city, reading poems at city council meetings, giving away chocolate and love poems to strangers on Valentine’s Day, and making poems for public spaces (i.e. a children’s spray park and a gorgeous metal tree). These day, I spend more time writing, reading, and leading writing workshops and retreats.
What I love: feeding people a home-cooked meal, conversations with strangers, banter with friends, the song of the red-winged blackbird, hyperactive squirrels, sunrise, dusk, laughter that spills over into tears, classic country story songs, the old hymns, a sermon built on story, Jesus telling it like it is, poplar trees, thrift store bargains, the snowy world at night, Narnia, the Little House on the Prairie books, Wendell Berry, blue collar wisdom, good poetry, good folks, good ideas, the ridiculous, a brisk walk, whistling, singing, questions, rehabilitated clichés, hunting beauty in common places—on the road’s shoulder, in the ditch, in the dust, in the junk heap, the word galore, the word glory, words—period, and how a person can wield them, fit them into sentences that make music, that wonder why, that try to tell the truth.