About

Poetry books The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus (Homestead Lighthouse Press, 2022), The Whole Shebang (WordTech, 2010) and Lick of Sense (Helicon Nine Editions, 2001) and four chapbooks; essay collection The Deepest South I've Gotten (Hell Yes Press, 2017); editor of Sarah's Civil War, an 1859-1865 diary (Bluebird, 2012). Poems, essays, articles and reviews widely published in periodicals and anthologies, including The American Scholar, The Hudson Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East, Salmagundi, Utne Reader, The Washington Post, and anthologies by Black Sparrow Press, Columbia
University Press and others. Former assoc. ed., River Styx; and book reviewer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Kansas City Star. Former organizer and administrator, OEO ("War on Poverty") & United Mine Workers Health and Retirement Fund; consultant to non-profits; freelance editor; teacher, Johns Hopkins Writing Tutorial by Mail and writer-in-residence, Hanover County, Virginia school system; adjunct instructor, colleges in Connecticut. MFA, writing - poetry, Vermont College; MPH, medical care administration, University of Michigan; BA, English, University of South Florida; Hebrew Ulpan, Kibbutz Ginegar, Israel;
Farrar Scholar in Poetry, Bread Loaf; Poetry Fellow, Vermont Studio Center. Native of Florida, from Georgia family. Two stepchildren, one birthdaughter. Lives with husband Tom in St. Louis.

Awards and Recognition

  • Marianne Moore Poetry Prize
  • Farrar Scholar in Poetry, Bread Loaf
  • Poetry Fellow, Vermont Studio Center