A bit about me . . .

I’m a hudson valley native

Which of course means that I didn’t appreciate the beauty & history of this place until I moved back to my hometown after both undergrad and grad school at NYU. Now, I see it everywhere, and I’m in love! I’m an avid walk-and-talker, and you’ll often find me begging friends & family to join in on such excursions. Thankfully, this home base of mine is rife with opportunity; there’s always somewhere very near (and totally gorgeous) to explore.

All of which is not to say that the city doesn’t still have a particular hold on me; after spending nearly seven of my most formative years there, I must admit that it will always feel like it’s “mine,” and it will always feel like it’s home. I just happen to reside a bit further up town these days.

I’m obsessed with (real life) stories

As one of my favorite writers, Lydia Davis, once said: “I find what happens in reality very interesting and I don’t find a great need to make up things.” This, for me, has always been the case, and while it’s an absolute joy to document the stories of others through photographs, I much prefer to share my own story through words. At NYU, I majored in English & Music and minored in Creative Writing, and I was subsequently accepted into their graduate Creative Writing Program, from whence I received my MFA in Fiction back in 2016.

But even my fiction isn’t fully fictive—hard as I’ve tried to “make up things,” I’m much too enthralled by the narrative arcs of life and my own lived experiences to do so! As such, I’m currently at work on a full-length memoir, an accompanying cabaret (this is where the music major comes in!), and an historical fiction novel based on my 184-year-old home.

If you’d like to sample some of my writing, here’s a link to a personal essay that I wrote for Bustle back in the day. It’s about body image, and thus touches on one of the major themes of nearly all my written work.
 

i’m also obsessed with cats.

In fact, I have four of them—Viola Hastings, Olivia Lennox, Bingley (as in Mr.), and Oliver (as in Twist). The latter two are technically my parents’ (though I had a heavy hand in naming them), and a fifth, Juliet Catpulet—my OG Assistant Editor and official CFO (Chief Feline Officer)—is only with us now in kitty-girl spirit 🤍.