About Me
I’ve been working as a writer, editor, teacher, tutor, and college essay coach for nearly three decades.
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My academic background includes a BA in Creative Writing from Oberlin College and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College. I’ve been awarded fellowships from The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Columbia University, Goucher College, and the Chicago Area Writers' Project, where I studied best practices for writing instruction.
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My professional background also features work as a documentary filmmaker, museum exhibit designer, wilderness trip guide, and corporate facilitator.
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I’ve lived in Tanzania and in the U.S. on both the east and west coasts. I now make my home in Chicago with my wife (a high school art teacher), daughter, and two Boston Terriers. That chicken in the photo is now a teenager.
Writing
I published my first nonfiction story—a late-night chronicle of people out on the town reacting to the start of the First Gulf War—when I was 23. And, (fun fact): that reporting was later chronicled in a song, called Shane, by Liz Phair. I published my first piece of short fiction soon after. Since then my work has appeared in several anthologies as well as in The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, GQ, Glamour, Harper’s, The LA Times Magazine, Ploughshares, Smithsonian, Men’s Journal, Outside, Spin, Playboy, Nerve, The Guardian Weekly, and on the public radio program This American Life.
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My documentary work as a director, producer, and scriptwriter has appeared on The National Geographic Channel and A&E.
Teaching
As an educator, I’ve taught courses, sat on panels, and given talks at Columbia College, DePaul, Emerson, NYU, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Goucher, UIC, SAIC, UChicago, the UChicago Lab School, Evanston Township HS, and via the online hub for content-makers and media professionals, MediaBistro.
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For years, I also served as Director of a busy drop-in writing center at a college prep high school, helping dozens of students each week complete everything from admissions essays and academic papers to personal statements, résumés, cover letters, and capstone projects.
Secret to My Success
Beyond my professional highlights, I suspect the one thing that most sets me apart and makes me a more effective teacher, tutor, and coach is the fact that, due to a childhood learning difference, I didn’t learn to read or write until I was ten.
And yet, with a lot of help along the way, I went on to become a professional editor, tutor, teacher, and writing coach. What’s my point? Just that I get not getting it. I know what that's like. And so it's never hard for me to grasp why one of my clients might struggle with some literary concept or editorial convention. But the point is also that, with enough patient support, I believe absolutely anyone can become a stronger writer. And I humbly hold myself up as living proof.