I’m a writer, visual artist, and an adoptee. I’m the founder of the Never Hush Workshops for Adoptees.

My debut hybrid memoir-in-essays, The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book, was published by Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press in May 2021.

I was born in a charity hospital in Hell’s Kitchen four years before Governor Rockefeller legalized abortion in New York. My birth mother was sent away to The Guild of the Infant Saviour––a Catholic home for unwed mothers in Manhattan––to give birth to me in secret. On the eve of becoming a mother, I began a search for the truth about my past, which led to a realization of my two identities and three mothers.

My work was Notable in Best American Essays 2021 and 2017. My writing and art are published or forthcoming in BOMB, HYPERALLERGIC, ZYZZYVA, The Believer, L.A. Review of Books, Bloom, Tupelo Quarterly, Blood Orange Review, Longreads Editors’ Picks, Hotel Amerika, Catapult, and Redivider, among others.

I am grateful for fellowships from The Saltonstall Foundation, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and The Horned Dorset Colony. The precious time and support allowed me to create freely.

I am the Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, a program from which I graduated. I’m also the founding director of the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont Young Writers Institute.

My artistic influences include my friends David Fratkin, Deb Mell, Thedra Cullar-Ledford, as well as Betye Saar, Leonora Carrington, Hieronymous Bosch, and Joseph Cornell among others. The Lonely Doll is my favorite childhood book and probably my greatest influence. Geek Love is my favorite novel of all time.

I will always insist on my cup of stars.