About

In this photo, I’m peering at a butterfly…

But the truth is, I’m much more curious about people—the lives we build, the choices we make, the work we do.

My curiosity and my love of writing led to a degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and then to work capturing stories for such organizations as American Express, the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.

I’ve had the good fortune to interview people from around the world and learn that everyone—no matter how sweeping or contained their lives have been—has a story worth telling.

Want to know more? Check out this article or read on below.

How it all started…

I was 25 when I sat myself down on the bare floor of the studio apartment where I lived alone outside of Harvard Square, notebook in hand. At the quarter century mark, it was time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

Fortunately, I thought I knew a few things.

I knew I didn’t want to keep working as a waitress and that I wanted to write, especially the kinds of stories about women’s lives that I was contributing to a local a feminist newspaper, Sojourner. And I knew that I wanted to have kids in a world where the concepts of family-friendly and work-life balance didn’t yet exist.

In a flash it came to me: I would be a freelance writer. And then, like a hot potato, I dropped it—frightened by the possibilities I had touched on—and decided to apply to graduate school.

Banging out deadline stories on typewriters, I barely survived Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose tough newsroom approach clashed with my desire for something deeper. At the same time, the lies and secrecy surrounding my mother’s death seven years earlier, a story I was still dodging, was pushing its way to the surface.

It took several more years of dodging before I found my way into therapy and began the lifelong process of unraveling the damage of deception. Then, after a few more years, I began the balancing act between motherhood and a freelance career writing for businesses, nonprofit organizations and foundations. With each story, I was awakened a little more by the lives of the people I wrote about—whether they worked underground splicing fiber optic cables; caring for the children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic in Africa; or devising new medical technologies to detect heart defects in young athletes.

As my work evolved, I also wrote about different spiritual paths for the Omega Institute, gaining new insights into the power of our stories. And I began helping people create memoirs of their lives for themselves and their families. Ironically, however, I only sporadically explored my own, often diminishing its value. It was too close to home and, anyway, how would I even begin?

Then, on the 44th anniversary of my mother’s death, a photo of her serving my 13th birthday cake prompted my first photo essay. As I wrote, I peeled back the layers of my relationship with her and the pain of the silence surrounding her death in profound and unexpected ways. I’ve since drawn on photos from all stages of my life to write bite-sized essays that reveal me more fully to myself in ways that are uniquely personal and yet, somehow, often universal.