Short Bio:
I’m a space lawyer by day, sci fi and fantasy writer by night. Sometimes I sleep. I graduated from Kenyon College and Harvard Law School. I live outside D.C., and I have published more than a dozen short stories in magazines and anthologies. I’m working on several novels, and I am represented by Laurel Symonds of KT Literary. I am a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.In my free time, I can be found inhaling books, cooking new recipes, tandem bicycling all over D.C., or taking long walks with my superhero Seeing Eye dog, Neutron Star.
Some more about me
I grew up in New Hampshire, and I’ve been telling stories since before I could write. I composed my first poem on a bike ride inVermont with my family when I was four or five. It was called “A Flock of Bubbles,” and my parents typed it up for me when we got home, complete with clip art bubbles flying around the words. I still have it somewhere.
As I grew up, I was always inventing worlds and characters and stories with my dollhouse people. I wrote my first book when I was ten. I actually remember asking my mom if I could write a book, as if that was something only grownups did, and until I was a grownup I just had to keep the story in my head. She encouraged me to start writing down my stories, and off I went. That first book wasn’t so much a book as a twenty-five page rehashing of Little House on the Prairie, but with boats, but I was very proud of it. And I was hooked. I loved coming up with the stories, but the act of writing them down, of finding the right words to make the scenes and characters and dialogue in my head real so someone else could experience them, was a whole new layer of magic.
Writing has been a priority in my life ever since. I went to Kenyon College and studied English and creative writing. I attended the Alpha and Kenyon Review young writers workshops, and I was a finalist in the 2014 and 2015 Dell Award for undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. After college, I spent a year teaching in Italy as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. While in Italy, I decided I wanted to go to law school, so I spent the next year working at the New Hampshire Disabilities Rights Center while I took the LSAT and applied. I was accepted to Harvard Law School, worked my tail off for three years, and graduated in 2019. At law school, I discovered space law, which allowed me to marry my lifelong love of astronomy and science fiction with my future law career. Now I’m working as a space lawyer for the federal government. I run a small writing group in D.C., and I’m a member of the Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes. I get up early every morning to write before work–or I try to–and I often write late into the night.
Other fun facts
- I’m fluent in Italian.
- I play the clarinet
- My favorite planet is Saturn
- I’m currently obsessed with the Nevermoor books
- I think Tangled is better than Frozen
- I make my own ice cream and have strong feelings on ingredients
- I’m blind, but that’s only relevant because of this excellent Neutron Star.