I started my teaching career in 1998 at age 23 while in working towards my MFA in Poetry at Indiana University.
As a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University from 2001-2003, I taught nonfiction writing to adults in Stanford's Continuing Studies Program, and for seven summers I taught writing in Stanford's Educational Program for Gifted Youth. In 2005, I was a member of EPGY’s summer-long pilot program in Singapore.
In 2004, I became a full-time English faculty member at Santa Clara University, teaching composition, creative writing, and literature courses to undergraduates. My literature course "The Photo Essay and Moments of Racial Crisis" was supported by an Irvine Foundation multicultural grant. I also enjoyed creating a life-writing class for seniors supported by the Osher Foundation in Santa Clara.
In 2008, I became Director of Creative Writing at Santa Clara, responsible for a reading series as well as updating creative writing courses to form a new university-wide curriculum. For 6 years, I also served as the faculty advisor for the literary review, working closely with students to design our biannual print journal of art and writing.
In 2010, I joined the MFA faculty at UNC Greensboro, where I taught graduate students as well as undergraduates. I taught the graduate poetry workshop as well as graduate tutorials and courses in poetics. In 2010, I also took a semester’s leave from UNCG to be an inaugural Distinguished Fulbright faculty scholar at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For six months during 2011, I taught a graduate poetry workshop to Northern Irish poets.
In 2014, I decided to return to Northern California with my partner and my sons, who were then 1 and 3 years old. I wanted to focus on my own writing after those 16 years of teaching every semester and many summers. Since returning to California in 2014, I've been a thesis advisor for USF graduate students and have led many free, independent workshops in my role as the City of Albany Poet Laureate from 2016-2020. Leading public art projects like our city’s “Fall into Haiku” initiative has been a rewarding addition to classroom teaching. During 2020-2021, like most parents, I unexpectedly found myself teaching my own children at home.
Teaching any student, from age 2 to 82, has been my vocation and a great joy. I look forward to all the teaching ahead of me.