I write personal stories about experiences that matter to me.
I write about home-cooked food and simple pleasures. I write about growing up in a quirky small town, with larger-than-life parents. I write about my exile in New England, and my own parenting life. I write about my experience of faith and wonder, which is sometimes my experience of cynicism, doubt and weariness. I write about reading, and about the ways my life was transformed by my hometown library and a wild little church. Who can understand the compulsion to follow these strange slivers of memory?
For the most part, I write from my desk overlooking The Great Marsh, on the outskirts of Ipswich, Massachusetts, though I sometimes write in spiral-bound notebooks, on-the-go. I keep fat files of stories-in-progress ripening in a drawer, where I peek in on them now and again.
I completed an MFA in Creative Nonfiction through Seattle Pacific University’s low-residency program in 2009.
Writing Experience:
In 2010, I contributed a chapter to The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God, Leslie Leyland Fields, editor. Byron Borger reviewed my chapter of the book at Hearts & Minds Booknotes, here.
The Other Journal is slowly releasing individual chapters of the book online, and I am patiently waiting my turn.
I won the 2011 culinary writing fellowship from The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, Eureka Springs AR (Duncan Eat/Write Fellowship).
From 2006 to 2009, I served as the “blog evangelist” for Ladies’ Home Journal (Meredith Corporation) and as the online moderator for More magazine’s message boards.
A number of my stories and essays can be found online:
May 2012, the High Calling: On the Assembly Line
July 2010, Comment Magazine: Home Cooking: Peas in Cream Sauce
June 2010, Seattle Pacific University MFA Blog: Each of My Callings Brings Joy
June 2010, Faith & Leadership Magazine: Unemployed, Underemployed and Overemployed
September 2009, Comment Magazine: Long Distance Friendships
November 2008, Comment Magazine: Author Q & A
Winter 2007-2008, Living Crafts premiere issue: It Takes a Village to Knit a Farm
Summer 2007, Spin-Off Magazine: A Yarn Party!
May 2007, Lost Magazine: Organic Fuji
September 2006, Catapult Magazine: Sewing Bat’s Ears
Catapult Magazine: List of articles
Selected Book Reviews:
Good Things Come to Those Who Sit: A Review of L.L.Barkat’s God in the Yard, Englewood Review of Books
Sustaining the Creative Life by Using Small Beans: A Review of L.L. Barkat’s Rumors of Water, Englewood Review of Books
Poetry, Percussion and Politics: A Review of Gil Scott-Heron’s The Last Holiday, Englewood Review of Books
In addition, my published works include:
2007, Interweave Press Spin-Off: “How to Host Your Own Yarn Party” (out of print)
Eat Well: A Food Road Map, published by *cino/Catapult
I write. I teach. I make stuff. I write about teaching. I write about making stuff. I write about writing. I write about everything.