About Me
I’ve been writing and editing professionally for 20+ years, working for book publishers, magazines, ad agencies, universities, companies and blogs. I’m also a mom of three teens, which I believe earns a place up top. I adore a dramatic sky, I think toast is a near-perfect food and I love telling people’s stories.
I edit books, manage contracts and write long-form profiles for book publisher Lost Art Press. I’m the managing editor of Mount St. Joseph University‘s annual alumni magazine. As a freelance copywriter at ORGANIC, I have written articles, emails and content briefs in the reproductive health and animal health categories. I write articles for Edible Ohio Valley magazine. I also write and edit content for Core Impact and Cloverleaf. I previously served as managing editor at Popular Woodworking Magazine (and even built a few things!) and Writer’s Digest magazine (where I’m still a contributing editor with a column).
My essays and poetry have appeared in “This I Believe: Life Lessons” (Wiley), TIME magazine’s parenting blog, The New York Times parenting blog, Scary Mommy, Literary Mama, Motherwell and The Huffington Post. You can find hundreds of personal essays on my blog, Pleiades Bee. My essay, “Apologies To the Parents I Judged Four Years Ago” was named one of TIME magazine’s Top 10 Opinions of 2012.
I live in a house built in 1910 (you can still find bottles from the prohibition era hidden in our cistern!) in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Along with our teens, my husband and I also live with Io (our dog) and Jupiter (our cat).
illustration by Elin Manon
My first children’s book, “Cadi & the Cursed Oak,” gorgeously illustrated by Elin Manon, was published in 2022 by Lost Art Press.
Cadi takes one sip out of an acorn-shaped cup and is immersed into a world of folktales with a seemingly impossible task: How do you stop stories that are too scary, sad or difficult to bear?
“Cadi brought the cup’s silver rim to her lips. What she didn’t know was that buried deep in the cup’s oak sleeve were spirits’ stories, long forgotten tales of hobgoblins and demons and death and sorrow, of things passed down and whispered in the dark, to scare and to warn. The bee’s-breath crack had awakened them, and with one small sip of water, Cadi drank them all in.”
Wrapped in a cotton-linen cloth cover with a foil stamp hand-lettered by Nicholas Moegly, the 48-page book includes a glossary and simple pronunciation guide of Welsh words, written by Dr Iwan Wyn Rees.
You can download an excerpt of this book here. An audio pronunciation guide to the Welsh words in the book is here.
