In my writing life, I am captivated by place.

I am an editor, essayist, and poet creating at the intersection of nature, place, and history. My work is rooted in the Midwest—where diverse ecologies persist in a fragmented landscape. As a 6th-generation inhabitant of the glacial-carved prairie pothole region of northern Iowa, my creative practice is heavily influenced by deep time, familial roots, and reckoning with a watershed radically reshaped by ongoing colonial forces. These entangled themes of fragmentation and resilience surface in poetry, prose, and collage as the fossilized remnants of Devonian sea life, dialogues with ancestors, and rearranged topographies. Furthermore, I carry these questions with me into my work as an editor for several literary journals, a workshop facilitator, and an Iowa Master Naturalist.

I hold an MFA in Creative Writing and a B.A in Writing & Rhetoric. My writing has been published in nearly a dozen literary journals and one anthology, including Midwest Review, Flyway, and Awake in the World Vol. 3, among others, and has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. I am a nonfiction editor for the online journal The Hopper and my print editorial projects include The Wildness We Tend for Writing the Wild and Stories of the Seasons for the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network. I am the founding editor of the grassroots literary journal Iowa Field Guides and author of The Observer: The Life and Writings of B.O. Wolden.

Photograph by Amee Ellis, 2023