Teaching
The classroom is where writing becomes real.
I’ve spent over two decades teaching people how to write — and more importantly, how to think. My career has moved through every level of the craft: from the newsroom floor, to twelve years in the high school classroom, to where I am now — teaching at SUNY Fredonia and St. Bonaventure University.
CAREER
Twenty years. Every level of the craft.
Present
12 years High School
6 years Newsroom
SUNY Fredonia & St. Bonaventure University
Teaching the art and craft of writing at the college level — both professionally and creatively. Courses span composition, creative nonfiction, and narrative writing for students at every stage of development.
High School Classroom
Twelve years shaping young writers before they knew they were writers. Teaching at the secondary level demands meeting students exactly where they are — and building the confidence to take the page seriously.
The Copy Desk
My first classroom had deadlines. As a copy editor at a daily newspaper, I learned precision, economy, and the discipline of writing under pressure. I also taught that same discipline to the editors around me. Every class I teach carries that foundation.
PHILOSOPHY
Writing as exploration. The classroom as collaboration.
Two interconnected ideas that have guided every course I've taught — from the newsroom to the lecture hall.
Lectures give students the tools — how to find and evaluate sources, how to set up a story, how to make the complex moves that push a narrative further. But tools alone don't make writers.
"My goal is not simply to help students become better writers, but to help them become informed thinkers and reflective citizens."
The workshop is where it happens. An interactive space where we share ideas and engage with each other's writing — all with the goal of becoming better together. Students learn that writing is both a personal act and a public one: a way of joining larger conversations and finding your place in them.
RECOGNITION
The work, recognized.
2025
Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching
SUNY System
2012
Excellence in Graduate Pedagogical Research
SUNY Fredonia, Dept. of English
Outstanding Teacher Work Sample
2016 & 2017
Unlocking Student Potential
Randolph Academy
THE OTHER SIDE
A writer who teaches is a different kind of teacher.
Everything I bring into the classroom is informed by my own practice on the page. The AWP Award, the MFA, the published essays — they're not separate from the teaching. They're the reason students trust the feedback.
A writer who is also a teacher has something rare: the ability to explain not just what good writing looks like, but what it feels like to make it.