I’m a writer and writing teacher living in the Bay Area.

In 2011, the New York Times “Modern Love” column ran my essay entitled “A Little Lint and Suddenly I’m Bridezilla?” Other stories of mine have been published in numerous literary magazines, including several in the Sun magazine, the Gettysburg Review, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Journal, and the Chicago Quarterly Review. My work has also appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Best Travelers Tales 2005, Best Women’s Travelers’ Tales 2005, A Woman’s Asia, Going Alone: Women’s Adventures in the Wild, and Best Travel Writing 2009. I’ve done some parenting writing for  the Huffington Post, TWINS, Women’s World, and Babycenter.com.

I completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of San Francisco, and one of my essays, “Part Lao, Part Falang,” won an Associated Writing Programs award for nonfiction. I’ve had the great fortune of receiving a MacDowell Fellowship.

I currently teach a personal essay workshop at San Francisco’s Writing Pad. In each five-week session, students go from pitched idea to publishable piece. Essays from my classes have recently appeared in Marie Claire, Salon.com and Refinery29. The next class starts Tuesday 2/16/18.

Here are links to two of my longer essays:

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/395/where-water-comes-froit

https://thesunmagazine.org/issues/429/it-takes-a-village-to-please-my-mother