My whole career, twenty years now, has been in education. My love for and passion about writing—about all good writing and helping people figure out how to do it, no matter their purpose—partly overlaps with education and partly stands on its own. As a teacher, writer, shop daughter, and now a parent, I believe in…
I began writing seriously in 2006, during my first of two grad school programs. I was sure that I wanted writing to be part of my life, but I was unsure that I wanted writing to be the central focus of my life. I entered grad school with an urge to learn about everything and…
My mother loved fabric. Her basement held hundreds of bolts up to fifty yards each, which means she could have unfurled a textile train over fifteen miles long. Fabric sat in tall stacks on her sturdy sewing-room workbench. The bottom bolts were flush with the bench’s front, but the stacks gradually leaned back as they…
Over a decade ago, I began writing a book, though I didn't know it at first. When I transitioned from elementary school teacher to graduate student, I began writing short pieces that led me to wonder about my meager childhood memory, study the nature of memory, and try to find lost memory. Eventually, I wrote…
My former student M. interviewed me about becoming a teacher. She's in Manhattanville's awesome Atlas program, which helps students define their motivations and create a direct, personalized path from college to career. (The program offers so much more than choosing a major.) M. plans to be a teacher and, in the long run, a teacher…
