I grew up in Florida and now live in Santa Cruz, California, in a brown house with a red door not far from the Pacific. Touch and Go, which won the Dana Award for the Novel, is my first novel.
I started writing for a living right after college, before I realized I liked it. I’ve worked as a speech writer for U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles; a publishing director for an art gallery in Santa Fe, NM; a journalist in New Mexico, Colorado, and Japan; a college lecturer and writing instructor in California and Japan; a communications director and vice president of national education policy organizations; and an education policy specialist.
In education policy, I partner with teams of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to describe and advance strategies that can help more students, particularly low-income students, attain higher levels of education. Some recent publications include Innovations in College Readiness; One Shot Deal?; Changing Course: Improving Student Completion in Community Colleges; and “Hidalgo Sets Sail” in American Educator.
I have a bachelor’s degree in politics from Oberlin College and a PhD in literature from UC Santa Cruz. At UCSC, I also taught creative writing and was co-fiction editor of Quarry West magazine.
But what I really like to do is write and think. Listen to people. Wonder. Engage. Read. Imagine. And rewrite.
Here’s a short article about me and Touch and Go by Wallace Baine of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
