My formal education consists of a B.A. in English from Grinnell College, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota, and a year in Vladivostok, Russia as a Fulbright Graduate Fellow. My pedagogical education has come from working with students at the U of M, Bismarck State College, Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College, and a varied assortment of Russian orphanages, correctional institutions, and alternative high schools. I write in - and enjoy teaching about - a range of genres including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, although lately I most often channel my love of storytelling into prose poem series that combine a short poem's punch (I hope) with an extended thematic and narrative arc. I like to write off of found objects like feathers, old family photographs, and scraps of torn wallpaper, and my creative work has been published in a number of journals and anthologies including Blackbox Manifold, The Prose Poem Project, Ekphrasis, and Crab Orchard Review. Chapbooks include Obscura: The Daguerreotype Series (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and Russia in 17 Objects (Tiger's Eye Press, 2012). My educational philosophy is grounded in a sense of responsibility and commitment to the learners in each class I teach. I strive to provide each student with an engaging, challenging course that will help him or her become the best writer possible.