Bio

I was born in the Tri-Cities, Washington, an irrigated dust bowl east of the Cascades that holds a special place in my heart, despite its belief that an illuminated cable bridge can spawn a tourism industry.

At the age of five, I self-published my first book, a shameless spoof of The Berenstain Bears about a family of nuts. Like most of my work, it’s semi-autobiographical, as I really did live with a family of nuts: My brother and I learned early on that the only way to remain sane was to appear in family portraits while doing headstands in our underwear.

I spent my childhood reading all the classics without “foul language,” as I was a devout Mormon. Now that I am no longer Mormon, I like to dive deep into obscenity and love Howl. One of my life ambitions is to shout its first page from a rooftop. I worked as the literary editor on Spindrift during college and graduated with a B.A. in Culture, Literature, and the Arts from the University of Washington-Bothell. My first collection of poems, Sagebrush and Cedar, was released in 2003.

I wrote two novels in high school and immediately after college. But it was finally when I tackled my third that I had found the subject matter to carry me through years of writing: a young woman’s loss of faith and the difficult choices she must make in her fundamentalist community. Now in final revisions, The Gods of Kittitas County is in search of an agent. You can read it for free here on Wattpad.

I have published short fiction in Spartan, and I am working on my next novel, The Life Cycle of Stars, exploring the Armenian genocide of 1915 and its ongoing impact today. Because artists still have to pay bills, I work at a library and am a full-time Masters of Education student. I plan to teach ESL after graduation. I also plan to climb Mount Rainier for my fortieth birthday. I live in Seattle with my husband and two cats.