I completed my undergraduate work in Secondary Education (Michigan Provisional Certificate) with a double-major in English and Mathematics and did my student teaching in Michigan in both subjects. I returned to school to complete a Masters of Fine Arts in English: Creative Writing (Poetry) from The University of Alabama where I taught full-time for several years and received multiple department and university commendations for my teaching.

In 2004, I received the Maureen Egan Writer's Excha...