I write across different modes: the essay (creative writing), criticism and theory (scholarly writing), freelance reportage, and pedagogy blogging.
Leavetakings (November 2020, University of Alaska Press)
“A stunning debut.”
—Jericho Parms, author of Lost Wax
My first collection of essays is Leavetakings (November 2020, University of Alaska Press).
The Essay
The essay is my form of choice because it invites hybridized encounters of lived experience, philosophy, poetics, inquiry, and sensory perception. Images of water often figure in to my writing. So does limestone. In one essay I write about a severed vagus nerve while pondering an origin story about ice. In another essay, I write about tweezing salmon otoliths, and in a third, I move between parabolas, asymptotes, swans, and squid.
Criticism and Theory
I use academic modes of writing to participate in my field’s conversations. In one article, for example, I critique the convention of referring to narrators as speakers and draw from ethnomusicology to theorize narration as a mode of listening.
Freelance Reportage
Examples: I write artist profiles for 49 Writers and the Rasmuson Foundation’s Artists of Alaska series, and my magazine feature on the Kohklux Map appears in the February 2020 issue of Yukon North of Ordinary.
Pedagogy Blogging, or, Writing about Teaching
I often contribute practical discussions of courses, assignments, and lessons to Pedagogy and American Literary Studies.