My short fiction and poems explore how characters or personas resist and/or conform to social structures. In my early fiction, published largely in feminist presses, I explore subjectivities and agency of white rural girls and mothers, as well as a health professional in Santa Fe, N.M. My later stories and poems are more intersectional in their attention to raced and classed gender binaries and queer rural subjectivities, both in relation to the U.S.-Mexican border and to contemporary American gun violence (see published poetry samples here and here in issue 39). One of my first short story publications was recently re-released by the original publisher, and a later story can be found here.

My co-edited book, which arose out of a six-college pedagogical project, features how teachers conceive of their work in relation to disciplines and social justice. In Social Justice Education: Inviting Faculty to Transform Their Institutions (Routledge, originally published by Stylus), we focus on the academy as a whole, existing and potential structures for change, and challenges and successes in particular courses. The book includes a final chapter by a former student of mine and a foreword by novelist Julia Alvarez. My own chapter focuses on course pedagogy in my class Writing for Social Change, in which students engaged in collaborative fieldwork, community learning and digital writing. The book has been cited in resource guides and earned positive reviews from several teaching journals. Diversity and Democracy described it as “inspiring…an excellent tool for faculty development around questions of social justice teaching…[with] its ambitious yet concrete approach” (see more in “reviews”). You can also find the book and more reviews on Amazon.

My first book, Vermonters At Their Craft (New England Press), is a collection of edited interviews. I came to the topic having worked as potter and studio assistant in a pottery studio where women faced the challenge of making a living from crafts in a male dominated industry and an industrial world. My mother, a writer, was serving at the time on a non-profit board for Vermont craftspeople, so we decided to work as a mother-daughter team. We interviewed a range of Vermont artists, including a basketmaker, a weaver, and a maker of miniature dolls, as well as the more obvious glassblowers, sculptors and printmakers. Many of our subjects were proud to bear the label of craftsperson, despite perceptions that art is higher than craft. National magazines such as The Crafts Report called the book a “welcome addition” to the field and Booklist referred to it as “an enduring volume for all libraries.” I consider interviews to be an important genre, especially given national obstacles to the status of qualitative research.