My debut story collection SMALL IN REAL LIFE was selected by Deesha Philyaw for the 2023 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. The book invokes the myth and melancholy of L.A. glamour, of starry-eyed women and men striving for their own Hollywood shimmer no matter the consequences. 

My stories and interviews have appeared in publications including Santa Monica Review, Pembroke Magazine, J Journal, PANK, and on ZYZZYVA, and I have an MFA from Bennington. I started out pre-med at Princeton, but first semester I dropped a beaker during a Chem final, and it exploded. Thank god. I stumbled into a dining hall rec room and found Toni Morrison reading The Bluest Eye. That was it. I took her seminar, Playing in the Dark. She lectured without notes, she read Moby Dick out loud, she told us stories about her friend Spike Lee.

I was a film production lawyer at Columbia Pictures, where years before as a temp I’d stood on a stepladder in the CEO’s office to feed tropical fish. I left Columbia to write screenplays about resilient women in scary situations. I’ve dreamed about selling a script again to get back on WGA healthcare.

I live in Northern California. I love the redwoods but I miss Southern California beaches: hot sand dirtier than you expect, pale blue lifeguard stations, hazy sunsets over a grey ocean.