Teaching Artist, Writers for Life & Iowa Arts Council
My focus can best be captured by my writing enterprise’s name, Writers for Life:
- I believe that writing is a way to improve a person’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being across the lifespan.
- I design genre-bender courses that take a thematic approach to each session, using themes such as humor, heroism, and healing to inspire writers to consider their world in a new light.
- I blend my unique interdisciplinary talents to help people of all ages and abilities improve their ability to reflect upon and share their unique life histories, leading to greater self and social awareness.
- I deliver quality instruction across the lifespan.
Writing, listening, and reading, combined with thoughtful feedback, rewriting, and polishing─ it sounds simple but requires skill and patience. The results are worth it, though, and can be seen in the proud faces of newly-minted writers and in the pieces that find their way into public readings or publications.
My techniques have possibilities for a variety of learning environments, from ELL (English language learners) to people with disabilities, to seniors, and students grades 6-16 and beyond:
SELECT COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS SERVED
- Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Iowa
- Central Iowa Center for Independent Living
- Des Moines Metro Arts Alliance GreenArts Program
- Friends of International Women
- Grinnell Area Arts Council
- Iowa Department for the Blind
- ISU Office of Precollegiate Programs for Talented and Gifted
- Latino Cultural Institute of the Midwest
- Margaret Sloss Women’s Center
- Midwest Veterans Writing Workshop
- National Alliance on Mental Illness - Central Iowa
- Story County Community Life Program
- The Workspace
- University of Iowa's Arts Share Patient Voice Project
