Who is Your Instructor?

That is a bag of homemade playdough hanging by my head.

Well, like all of us, she's a bunch of things!

First, she is a senior lecturer in the Department of English at Penn State, and has been teaching undergraduate and graduate writing for thirteen years.

She is also the mother of two insanely precocious kids: a 4 1/2 year old girl and a 7 year old boy who is starting first grade! She is unashamed to say that she laughs out loud to Spongebob and that trying to learn the rules to the Pokemon game gave her an intense headache.

She loves to cook and to eat and is a big fan of ethnic cuisines of all sorts. She has a serious, possibly problematic, love for sausage and hot fudge brownie sundaes, though not on the same plate, please. She gives extra credit for excellent dark chocolate and deducts 1/2 letter grade for anything labeled both "white" and "chocolate." No. Just no.

She's a working, professional writer, too: a published poet and essayist (Go ahead and Google; that's what she would do if she were you.) who earned her Master of Fine Arts (MFA)  from Penn State and studied with some of the very same faculty you will.

As a writer, she is very much a supporter and celebrator of the written word, of course, but also of the arts in general. She is super excited that she gets to be the one to show you all some of the ways to feed your creative soul while you study and prepare for your life beyond Penn State!