Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, I am now an Associate Professor of English at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York. I am the author of two poetry chapbooks, Stealing Dust (Finishing Line Press) and Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt (Main Street Rag). My poems have been published in over 100 journals including Chautauqua, Copper Nickel. Crab Orchard Review, Harpur Palate, Fourth River, Flyway, Spillway, Rattle, River Styx and Whiskey Island. My poetry has also appeared in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry series and Sundress Publications Best of the Net annual anthology.
My essays have been published in About Place, Briar Cliff Review, cream city review, Lake Effect, Potomac Review, Storm Cellar, and Waccamaw. "Compromising Chiroptophobia or Why I'm Giving Up and Learning to Love the Bat," which explores my fear of bats along with my concern over the bat crisis in my home state of Pennsylvania, won Nassau Review's 2014 Writer Award for Prose.
I have also been honored with a New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellowship and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. My primary writing, teaching, and research interests include working-class literature and education as well as environmental and nature issues.
When I am not teaching, reading, or writing, I am biking or hiking through the woods of Western New York and Northern Pennsylvania. When snow pushes me indoors, (which often happens here in the Snow Belt) I spend time with my fiancé and four cats, Charly, Ali, Bennie, and Loki.
My essays have been published in About Place, Briar Cliff Review, cream city review, Lake Effect, Potomac Review, Storm Cellar, and Waccamaw. "Compromising Chiroptophobia or Why I'm Giving Up and Learning to Love the Bat," which explores my fear of bats along with my concern over the bat crisis in my home state of Pennsylvania, won Nassau Review's 2014 Writer Award for Prose.
I have also been honored with a New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellowship and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. My primary writing, teaching, and research interests include working-class literature and education as well as environmental and nature issues.
When I am not teaching, reading, or writing, I am biking or hiking through the woods of Western New York and Northern Pennsylvania. When snow pushes me indoors, (which often happens here in the Snow Belt) I spend time with my fiancé and four cats, Charly, Ali, Bennie, and Loki.
