A student once wrote on an evaluation that I knew “so much about so many different things so as to boggle the mind.” In other words, I know a little about a lot of things! I grew up in Seattle in a family of independent, curious people who always ask “Why?” I feed my curiosity with public radio, magazines, and lots of reality TV—and, of course, by listening to students. I studied theater at Whitman College, a small liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington, eventually finding my way to the master’s program in English at Western Washington University. There I discovered composition & rhetoric—a field that allows me to explore how we use language and symbols to understand who and what we are in the world. My doctoral dissertation at Syracuse University focused on three actress/writers of the mid-19th century who negotiated (and sometimes flouted) the boundaries of respectability as they earned a living in the public eye.
Areas
- Academic Writing
- Professional Writing
- Feminist Historical Rhetoric
Degrees
- Ph.D. Composition & Cultural Rhetoric, Syracuse University, 2007
- M.A. English, Western Washington University, 1999
- M.A. Theater, Western Washington University, 1992
- B.A. Dramatic Art, Whitman College, 1986