As a teacher, I strive to create an open and honest dialogue with my students to help foster their growth as a writer. My goal is never to make a student write like me or like anyone, but to find their own unique voice. This includes exploring how their voice fits into the world around us. I’m an avid believer in the idea that you can’t be a good writer if you aren’t a good reader. I hope to push and challenge my students to read vastly including works outside of their genre. I also recommend exploring other art forms from film and television to the visual arts.
I’m also drawn to longer and interconnected work, especially in poetry. I will help students keep the bigger picture in mind. Together, we can explore how to build a collection and how to think about the conversation that is happening between individual pieces.
Another key aspect of any MFA program is learning how to receive and utilize feedback. As a teacher, I will help guide students in that process and will engage them in conversations about their work that will hopefully be challenging and fruitful.
My own work is interested in sexuality and gender, but also our relationship to the often-violent world we inhabit, which affects every relationship we have. As a queer person, I’m particularly interested in how that manifests for the LGBTQ community. My work also explores our connections to pop culture as a map for understanding ourselves. Pop culture, in many ways, has become our universal language—a short-hand for how we classify and evaluate our own experiences. I’m heavily influenced by the New York School, but also find inspiration in history, visual arts, film, television, and my own personal experiences.