Bio

I am a poet, occasional book reviewer/freelance writer, and editor. A native of Southern California, I have lived in and around the Los Angeles area for most of my life, though I did spend about three years in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

My very first “workshop” experience was with Jack Grapes through the Poets in the Schools program in middle school. Later, in college, I studied with Robert Arthur. Since then, I have had the privilege of working with poets Christopher Buckley, Mark Doty, Richard Garcia, Jason Schneiderman, Maurya Simon, and Roger Weingarten, in a variety of workshop settings, and was a private student – her only at the time — of Beth Ann Fennelly.  I am a member of the Women’s Poetry Listserv (Wompo), founded by Annie Finch in 1999, and have been an on-again/off-again participant in an off-shoot Wompo workshop. I also have a fabulous poetry group that I have been meeting with monthly for about eight years.

In late 2005, I founded Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry, with the first issue launched in June of 2006. In July of 2006 I hosted the first Poemeleon Summer Reading at the Riverside Art Museum. In late 2006 I became involved as an associate contributing editor with the journal Babel, an offshoot of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), an organization dedicated to freedom of expression. The journal later became independent of ICORN, though maintaining the same high standards and ideals, and currently operates under the name Babel Fruit.

My poems have been anthologized in White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood (from the Association for Research on Mothering, York University, Canada/Demeter Press), Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel — Second Floor (No Tell Books), and Letters to the World: Poems from the Women’s Poetry Listserv, which was launched at the 2008 AWP conference in New York. Though I was unable to attend, my poem from that anthology was read during the launch reading.

My first chapbook manuscript, small fruit songs, has just been released by Pudding House Publications. My first full-length collection, Seven Floors Up, will be published in June 2008 by Mayapple Press. 

I enjoy working with the community on poetry & literature-related projects and have acted as judge for Riverside Community Art Association’s “Imagining the Future of Reading” art show, the literature portion of the Riverside Humane Society’s “Art for the Animals” benefit auction, and was most recently a panel member for the opening of the Riverside Public Library’s “Business of Art 101″ seminar series. I also occasionally act as judge for a biannual teen poetry slam at the Corona Public Library where I will be teaching a one-day workshop for teens this summer. And though I am primarily interested in poetry, I have also worked as a freelance writer and copy editor. 

For samples of some of my recent work, see the “poems” and “small fruit songs” tabs above.

To read the text of Gayle Brandeis’s interview with me click here.