Credentials/Biography
I grew up in San Diego, CA. I graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA with a BA in Creative Writing. Subsequently, I attended graduate school at the University of Southern California where I earned an MFA in Professional Writing with a Creative Nonfiction emphasis. During my tenure at these two schools, I created a massive body of work with great thanks to my professors and fellow students. I taught writing classes at a drug rehabilitation facility in Pomona, CA and a juvenile detention center in the back hills of the Inland Empire. I've had various poems published in young poet anthologies, though I have abandoned poetry over the past many years for short stories and nonfiction essays. However, my poetry will always be a part of my early start as a writer and I am proud to include it on my site for perusal.
My current project is a full-length Creative Nonfiction book. It is a mixture of memoir and research that takes a look at the adolescent mental health system. I went through a rough adolescence with many medications and hospitalizations to my name. I have come out of it wondering where puberty ends and mental illness begins. Should we really be giving our children drugs to treat what may be natural hormonal disruption? Read my book and decide for yourself ;)