I’m a writer, backpacker, ecofeminist, and connoisseur of vegan donuts 🍩
I’m currently writing a memoir, as well as a collection of essays around intangible losses associated with the climate crisis.
I believe that words and stories carry power, and that they have the capacity to catalyze change. From where I stand, I think the world could use a bit of changing.
“A word after a word after a word is power.”
~Margaret Atwood
I’m also the Managing Editor of ONLY POEMS, an editor for Ecotone Magazine, a guest editor for The Masters Review and CRAFT, an editorial intern at Tin House, and a MFA in Creative Writing candidate at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
ESSAYS
You Imagine Death — Bellevue Literary Review
Heartwood — Isele Magazine
The Lonely Mountain — Writerly Magazine
Fight Like A Girl — The Keeping Room
Do Leaves Hurt When They Fall? — Wild Roof Journal
Holy Donuts — HerStry
Imprint — Roi Fainéant Press
Snow — The Corvus Review
POEMS
her rape — Harbor Review (forthcoming)
Excerpt from Do Leaves Hurt When They Fall?
First Published in Wild Roof Journal
Holding his tiny hand in my own, carrying his small form in my arms, how could I tell him the truth?
That the entire Earth is hurting. That we – human beings – have catalyzed a catastrophic geological age fueled by industrialization, greed and exploitation. That forests are weeping as their trees are felled and invasive species proliferate. That the oceans are moaning as their waters heat, their fish are stolen, and their coral die off. That mountains tremble in nakedness, having lost the nourishing cover of snowfall…
Excerpt from Imprint
First Published in Roi Fainéant Press
Hold tight. Let go. Paper cuts. Finger pricks. Knuckles jam. Bones smash. Muddy nails. Palms on an oak burl. Dandelion yellow. White snow on red skin. Scar from a pocket knife. French manicures. Lavender soap. Fingers dipped in cake batter.
Your fingers untangling my hair. The intimacy of our hands interlaced.
I remember when your hand engulfed mine. It was aged with lines and wrinkles, covered in skin that I could pull into little teepees before watching it retract back over your bones…
Excerpt from Heartwood
First Published in Isele Magazine
Sitting down cross-legged on a boulder that has settled a few inches above the rapids, I rub my hands over its textured form. Faint lines of color swirl across its surface in foliated lines, a testament to all it has endured in an intricate layering of memory and time. Speckles of quartz peek through deep and shallow crevices to reflect the sun’s rays in the rare moments that light pierces through the overcast sky.
Science places the age of such rocks at 3.8 billion years.
I am 19 years old. I’ve only lived about 615,000,000 seconds.
A collection of sparkling mica schist catches my eye. It lays scattered beneath the water’s surface, adorning the creek with the earth’s own natural jewelry. As another metamorphic rock, it too has endured the test of time. I dip my hand into the water to touch its bejeweled form, feeling the tips of my fingers burn, tingle, and then go numb from the cold.
“What have you seen?” I whisper, imagining the rock might reveal its secrets to me. “What have you seen in this long life?”
Excerpt from Holy Donuts
First Published in HerStry
On the streets of West Philadelphia, I felt the beads of sweat dripping down my back in warm rivulets. My feet shuffled side to side in an impatient dance as I waited in line at Dotties Donuts, six feet behind the customer in front of me. I was grateful for the slight anonymity that my face mask bestowed upon me even as the edges dug into the sides of my cheek and the bridge of my nose. Wearing a mask was a Covid-19 pandemic-driven phenomenon and then a city-wide mandate, leaving only the outer edges of my face visible to passersby. Not that there was much to see anyway. In the name of chastity and subduing sex desire, all girls in the ashram wore loose clothing…
Excerpt from Fight Like A Girl
First Published in The Keeping Room
On the day I decided to let a man climb between my legs again, the room was thick with Florida’s humid heat and the build-up of sweat. Standing in line on the mats, engulfed by a gi that flared loose around my arms and thighs, the square knot cinched around my waist was the only intimation of a feminine form. I felt self-aware and beautiful in a way that was unique to the self-acknowledgement of power and strength. It was a beauty that existed for my own edification.
The padded blue mat clung to my feet as I shifted my weight slightly from side to side, watching as my toes stuck and squeaked against the familiar surface…
Excerpt from You Imagine Death
First Published in Bellevue Literary Review
You imagine death the way an athlete envisions success: in preparation.
It isn’t the first time, but it’s different. This time it’s not in your control. You can’t drop the knife, leave the edge, ditch the pills.
The hospital room is covered in vinyl fish stickers, and their colorful bodies swim across the white walls with perfectly formed bubbles spiraling out of their mouths. You imagine that you will die like a fish—eyes frantic, mouth agape, body twisting.
You rehearse the details over and over again: the final breath, the pronouncement, the cloth being pulled over your head, the way the mascara still clinging to your eyelashes sizzles in the heat of cremation. The question of whether there is life after death haunts in the background. As a baptized but nonpracticing Catholic, you know you haven’t done enough to ascend. The vague version of hell from the Christian denomination your mother converted to seems a likely destination, if only because you made a habit in your high school years of rolling joints with pages from the Bible.