Received my BA in English and French from Skidmore College, with secondary teaching certificate in both, and a college-wide writing award.
Taught English at Wilton High School in Connecticut.
Learned the magazine business as a writer/editor at On Cable Magazine, with publisher/editor Peter Funt.
Received my MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, where I was on the editorial board and organized readings for the literary magazine.
Spent years as a regular contributor to Metropolis, Photo District News, and Family Life, and published features in AdWeek, American Baby, American Heritage, Child, Elle Décor, FamilyFun, New York Magazine, School Library Journal and many other national magazines. Was reprinted in the Utne Reader.
Contributed articles to the Encyclopedia of New York City.
Did research, copy editing and rewriting for Hallmark Magazine, NYC Parks, Scholastic, Working Mother Magazine, Ziff-Davis. Wrote the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s quarterly newsletters and annual report and created extensive web content for Teacher’s Discovery and Saratoga Associates.
Won the American Business Press award for a feature I co-wrote in Photo District News.
Shifted to fiction and personal essays in the 1990’s, with short stories published in ACM: (Another Chicago Magazine), Columbia: A Journal of Literature & Art, Pearl, The Sun, The Worcester Review and others; essays in Lilith, The New York Times and The Sun, and a column in The Villager.
Returned to my teaching roots with online writing classes and one-on-one tutorials at The Writers Studio in 2005. Also took on private writing students, helping them bring short story collections, novels and memoirs to fruition. Many have gone on to publish and win awards.
Ventured into spoken-word performance and acting, performing my own work as part of the revue New York Ladies at the Hudson Guild Theatre and acting in four community-theater plays, giving poetry readings at Dan Manjovi's monthly open mic and with the Daniel Bennett Jazz Band, and guest performing in the Groovin' on a Sunday monthly cabaret alongside my singing husband.
Won two awards in 2015: the 2014 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize for my English version of a Jacques Brel song, and third place statewide for best column in the New York Press Association Better Newspaper Awards. Here's the write-up in The Villager, where the column appeared: Her three pieces included a critical look — as a cyclist — at the city’s expanded network of bike lanes; a recollection of when the late Pete Seeger in 1987 came to play at a Save the Village fundraiser to fight the construction of the 18-story Memphis Downtown building; and her musings on the “high-end” lobby desk planned for her building. “The lobby desk column was one of the best I’ve read,” the judge wrote.
Named a semifinalist for the 2016 Raymond Carver Short Fiction Award, a finalist for the 2016 Bass River Press Poetry Competition, and one of two finalists for the 2015 Robert and Adele Schiff Award in fiction. And won my second Willis Barnstone Translation Prize in 2016.
Began writing poems in earnest in 2015, using the Tupelo Press 30/30 project as a launching pad (30 poems in 30 days!). Published in Literary Mama and on the homepage of the Society of Classical Poets. In 2018 had my first chapbook of poems, Victory Boulevard, published by Finishing Line Press.
Won the first place prize for Best Column in the 2018 New York Press Association Better Newspaper Awards. Here's what the judges wrote: “Firmly rooted in local interest, the columns displayed the sense that the writer was willing to dive into the community, talk with anyone and everyone and distill [it all] into something with meaning — delightfully local, thoughtful collecting of expertise. … Great writing, great voice with high impact.”
Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
First novel, Save the Village, published by indie press Regal House Publishing in 2022, named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Second chapbook, Just Another Jack: The Private Lives of Nursery Rhymes, published by Finishing Line Press, also in 2022.
Many poems, essays and stories published since then, in journals including The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, New York Quarterly, The Sun.
In spring 2024, performed at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater as part of the storytelling series Generation Women. Spoke about Greenwich Village on a panel at the Chaim Gross Foundation alongside Village Preservation Director Andrew Berman. Read poems at various readings.
Won the 2024 Subnivean Fiction Prize. Judge Gish Jen wrote: This story was not only visceral and gripping, with many terrific details and excellent pacing, but boldly surprising. Bravo!
