Hanging out in Vancouver Chinatown.
Whether we have met in person, or you are meeting me via this website, welcome to my electronic teaching portfolio. This site captures my life as a teacher of creative writing—a collection of my teaching experiences thus far, as well as my reflections on teaching. I’m glad you are here and am eager to show you what teaching means to me and how I’ve shared my passion for it with others.
Biography
Reading my work at a poetry reading.
I am completing my Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia in the city of Vancouver, Canada. I have three concentrations of study—poetry, fiction, non-fiction—and my thesis will be a manuscript of poetry in both verse and prose poems. The UBC Creative Writing Department is keenly interested in the pedagogy of creative writing, and I have benefited in manifold ways:
- As a teacher for and coordinator of the New Shoots program
- As a student in the Teaching Creative Writing 522 course
- As a Teacher’s Assistant for Intro to Creative Writing 202
- As an active participant in the teacher assistant training program
My undergraduate degree is in English with Hounours at The University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. My concentrations of study were creative writing, Canadian literature, renaissance literature, as well as a special interest in linguistic theory. During my undergraduate years, I took two teaching courses (Introduction to Education Principles and Practices and Education Librarian) and worked as a teaching assistant. It is during these formative years that my two passions—language arts and teaching—met and married.
Always looking for a contemplative spot...
On a personal note, I was born and raised in Estevan, Saskatchewan. As a prairie girl living in Vancouver, I appreciate the mountains and their splendor, but am very fond of the prairie sky when it’s ablaze with lightning or has wisps of cirrus clouds hanging on an indigo background. In my free time I volunteer as a Christian minister, collect books and music, hike, visit local art galleries, and write, write, write.