1987: M.A., Psychology of Reading, Temple University
1975: B.S., English and Education, University of Minnesota

2000: Poem, Last in Line, ArtWord Quarterly
2000: Poem, To Jane In Kansas, Red Rock Review
2000: Poem, Winter Solstice, Poetry & Prose Annual

1999: Poems, Two Kingdoms and Up the Wooden Mountain, Acorn Whistle

1998: Mark Twain Award for Fiction, Honorable Mention, for One Sister Away, story, Red Rock Review

1997: Poems, The Fist Hatchery and Esther’s Sheets, Acorn Whistle

1996: Poem, Night Press, American Writing
1996: Poems, The Red Maple and My Brother, Pivot

1995: First Place for Last Italian Days: The Grandmother, sonnet sequence, National League of American Pen Women
1995: Mentorship w/Pablo Medina, poet and writer, Philadelphia

1983: Birth of daughter, Rachel

1981: Poem, On Wondering About Teaching Well, English Journal

1979: Residency, Hedgebrook Farm, Whitbey Island, Puget Sound
1979: Birth of daughter, Carrie

Two summers ago I was in Willa Cather’s hometown of Red Cloud, Nebraska. I stood at the edge of the small bedroom where she had rested on the floor by her window, trying to dream her dreams in the summer light and the winter wind. I saw the prairie that filled her heart with longing and life. I came away from that day reassured that I could never divide my life into two parts, writing and not. Perseverance. When I think of writing as a way of life, I am a little more at peace about everything. Most of my poems and stories are about my family, about growing up in the Midwest. Writing has always been the way I best interpret what I know of the world and what I also imagine it to be. Writing is also about perseverance, about finding language and sound that helps create the story of whatever I’m trying to say.

at me is sideways. The line of
silver skin around her eyes
throbs. Underneath the silky

slipcover of her hair, the
small bones of her skull puddle.
The grey cloak that her wings

are, and those red shoes—
someone brought them to her
from China.

I don’t know the story of her
ancestors, if she is happy
behind the sleek mystery of

her face or if the memory
of her loved ones has fallen.
Above the velvet sweater of

her chest she calls someone
and the white cave of her
voice opens.