I wrote and published my first book in 7th grade. I typed it on my father’s manual typewriter, illustrated it with crayon, and sewed the binding on my mother’s Singer sewing machine. The cover was fabric-covered cardboard, and it was one-of-a-kind.
My first publishing credits were magic-trick booklets. In 1997, while working as a marketing director and graphic designer for Hampton Ridge Magic (later purchased by Fun, Inc. in Chicago), I wrote 101 Tricks with a Svengali Deck. It was good training in explaining a process clearly to a stranger, which is most of what writing teachers do.
After Chicago, I went back to West Virginia and into newspapers. I had edited the student paper at Glenville State, and I went on to report and write a weekly column for The Calhoun Chronicle. In 2007 I started Two-Lane Livin’ Magazine, which I published, edited, wrote for, and laid out for ten years. Nothing teaches you to cut a sentence like a print deadline and a fixed number of column inches.
In 2017 I finished my MFA in creative writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College, with a specialization in creative nonfiction. By then I was working at the Gilmer Public Library, and I directed it from 2018 to 2023. In 2022, the West Virginia Library Commission named me Librarian of the Year. Along the way, I taught English foundations and speech as an adjunct at Glenville State University.
Since 2020, I’ve coached writers online, from high school students to adults working on memoir and fiction. I try to be honest and kind in the same sentence. I won’t tell you a draft is finished when it isn’t, and I won’t let you believe it’s hopeless when it isn’t. Most of what I teach comes down to noticing what already works in your writing and doing more of it on purpose.
These days I live on a farm in West Virginia, where I write, paint, and run Stumptown Publishing, LLC, a small press, and Two-Lane Books, a curated bookshop of Appalachian authors, history, and stories. I send two newsletters: The Honest Page, on essay craft, and Two-Lane Contemplations, on rural life. My training in online teaching, student privacy and safety, and anti-bias education is listed on my Career/Experience page.
If you have a draft, a deadline, or a story you keep not writing, send me a message.
