I am an East Tennessee writer, visual artist, and English teacher. Those have never been entirely separate occupations.
I earned graduate degrees in English and literary theory, rhetoric and composition, and education. I have spent most of my professional life teaching people how to read closely, make defensible claims, revise sentences, and distrust the first explanation that arrives. Teaching has probably made me more patient with drafts and less patient with vague claims.
Writing
I write fiction for young readers and adults. My current novel, Ella Alden and the Island of Living Sand, is a middle-grade fantasy about an observant girl whose careful understanding of the natural world becomes both a refuge and a source of courage. The complete manuscript is now in revision.
I also write short fiction and essays. My stories tend to place ordinary people in familiar settings and then introduce one element that refuses to behave reasonably.
Art
I work in watercolor, gouache, pen and ink, and acrylic marker. I am drawn to buildings, interiors, streets, glass, metal, and overlooked objects. Much of the work begins as direct observation in East Tennessee or in whatever place has caught my attention.
In 2025, my work received First Place in the adult division of Preserve Chattanooga. I continue to build a body of work under the name From Where I Sit.
The rest of it
Books, paintings, comics, games, old buildings, orchids, and long arguments about definitions all tend to enter the work eventually.
For years I described myself as someone who wanted to write and paint. That tense has become less useful. This site is where I keep the work.
