About Me

From TCK to Memoir Coach

I've lived and worked outside the United States for a significant portion of my life, so I name myself among a number of these outsider identities:

Missionary Kid
Third Culture Kid
Development Worker
Multicultural Family
Global Nomad

I use my observational and inquiry skills developed from a lifetime of making myself at home in unfamiliar places to inform my book coaching.

Multi-Generational Missionary Kid

My grandparents were lifelong missionaries in Thailand, meaning that my mother raised me and my brothers as Americans, while her sticky rice and khao soi communicated her longing for a house on stilts in the Northern Thai mountains that she rarely returned to.

I got to know a little of Thailand on a handful of family trips. That was the first place I learned cultural norms could change from place to place and that I could function as part of a group even if I didn't understand the conversations around me.

Third Culture Kid

Since my mother grew up on the mission field, it was natural that she would feel the urge to return. She and my father chose a medical mission to Burkina Faso and took three children under age five along for the adventure.

In our village, I made friends by bursting out of our creaky metal gate and joining the lizard-hunting mischief, safe in the knowledge that if anything went sideways, there were many mothers within earshot, ready to rescue and berate us as needed.

Central to my origin story, I met a missionary teacher there who managed a one-room schoolhouse that contained a wall full of books. Becoming a teacher with a wall full of books all to myself became my life goal.

Development Worker

I spent most of my 20's and early 30's in Uganda and Rwanda, working with international non-profit and development organizations and chasing my teaching dream.

For much of that time, I lived with Ugandan host families, so I was deeply invested in fitting into the culture and expectations of my community, even though I clearly stuck out.

I found a better career fit outside the classroom as a documentation expert, collecting personal stories from survivors of conflicts, both systemic and familial. Through this work, I learned how to tell and how to receive a story through beneficial, safe processes.

GLobal Nomad

While we currently make our home in the States, my husband and I have created a cross-cultural family with ties to Mexico.

We have both been influenced by our parents' decisions to move us across borders as children. While our experiences and worldviews are unique, we have found common ground in the desire to raise our child so that he approaches difference with curiosity.

We have been experimenting with the global nomad lifestyle and have spent several month-long stays in a number of cities in Mexico. With each visit, we learn more about how to create home and foster connection in a liminal environment.

Credentials

I hold an MFA in creative writing from Chatham University. I have ten years of experience as a developmental editor.

I am an Author Accelerator™ certified Book Coach, focusing on memoir. I completed a robust one-year training program that included practicums and feedback from experienced coaches. I am qualified to coach writers using Author Accelerator’s strategy, methods, and materials, but I operate independently of Author Accelerator and am not affiliated with them.

Subscribe to My Newsletter

Join the community of readers and writers over at Write Like An Outsider, my Substack publication. Receive weekly encouragement and techniques to tell your stories in ways that others will understand and be curious about.