I grew up the youngest of nine on a farm in rural Minnesota in a fundamentalist religion. No TV, no music, no dancing, no birth control, no questioning. I left at 21 and eventually found my way to New York City, where I've spent the last two decades building a life that was unimaginable to the girl I used to be.
Along the way, I became a personal trainer, a doula, a graduate student, a podcast producer, and—finally—a writer willing to tell the truth about where I came from.
These days, I split my time between training a handful of long-term clients, producing podcasts about the craft of life writing, and working on my own books. I'm currently finishing a collective memoir about women who left Laestadianism, built from oral histories I've collected over several years. I also produce an audio memoir called The Silence Between Hello, which reached 27,000 downloads in its first week.
I have an MA in Biography & Memoir from CUNY Graduate Center and a BA in English/Creative Writing and Black Studies from City College, where I graduated summa cum laude. I'm currently applying to PhD programs.
I live in Jersey City with my husband James and our dog.