Artist Statement
Writing focuses my thoughts and filters my emotions. It centers me. Like taking deep, restorative breaths, writing provides pathways of release, whether or not I consciously seek creative response. I write because I must.
Writing, whether creative nonfiction, poetry, or invented narrative, pushes me away from the desire for control. Searching for words to mediate my place in the world means yielding to surprise — as when someone steps out on a trail and finds what they’re not looking for. The story tells me what I need to hear. Then I follow that destination.
Poetry, however, lures me into especially complex practice. The connotative power of image, syntax, compression and metaphor, the musical echo of words aligned by sound as well as meaning, these elements create ideal conditions for yielding to intuition.
As a school child, I produced little booklets like zines of stories, reports, drawings. As an adolescent I wrote in secret. As an adult I balance academic and creative writing, alternating among different audiences and their needs. I negotiate between the requirements of professional life and the solitude required to produce what heart and mind tell me needs to be said. I wake to that challenge nearly every day.
