Encouraging creative expression to build empowered, empathetic humans.
ABOUT ME ⌄
I’m an interdisciplinary educator and organizer based in Portland, OR, USA with a passion for creating equitable and functional systems and structures that co-create communities of true belonging and care.
I am the child of political organizers, going several generations back. I am the descendent of pogrom survivors and poets, and sheep herders and farmers, who fled Europe, and were bamboozled and hoodwinked into aculturating themselves into settler systems in order to survive in what we call the US.
My folks turned away from normie life, and I was raised in the City of Chicago by former civil rights activists, former almost priests, former hippies, dramatists, artists, musicians, actors, singers, costume-designers and great cooks.
I have spent the last twenty years or so disentangling my history and present to figure out who I came to this planet in this flesh suit, to be. This is where I’ve landed as of early 2024. Subject to review, new lessons, and revision, always.
I BELIEVE ⌄
It’s possible to move through our historical and very present cycles of trauma together:
- By building relationships with ourselves, our lineages, and one another.
- By reading each other and our histories closely.
- By asking genuine and thoughtful questions, and listening to the answers without pre-conceived expectations.
- By co-constructing trust, and actively composing harmonies.
- By redirecting anger at the appropriate sources of inequities, instead of one another.
- By asking for, and then figuring out how to meet one another’s needs, and building systems that do so effectively and efficiently.
- By voicing authenticity with vulnerability and humility.
- By acknowledging and repairing when we fuck up.
- And most importantly, by not looking away from one another, or from the root causes of problems. (Which in the construct we currently live in, tend to be economic in origin, and woven tightly into race-based caste systems with imperialistic political power structures.)
Systems are written. And as any writer knows, anything written can be rewritten, edited, revised, and completely restructured to better serve the needs of our story.
I’d love to write with you.
SKILLS I CAN OFFER YOU ⌄
Full CV or tailored resumes available. Cliffnotes below!
EDUCATION ⌄
I am a proud graduate of Chicago Public Schools: (Shout out to AN Pritzker Elementary & Mather High School!)
I graduated from Northwestern University with a double major in Comparative Literature: Critical Theory & Creative Writing: Fiction.
I have a Masters of Arts in Teaching from National Louis University in Chicago,
and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon.
SKILLS + EXPERIENCE ⌄
- Teaching: Middle, High school, College, and Community Education in a variety of settings. (public, private, prisons, libraries, online, in person). World Literature. Creative Writing. Rhetoric + Composition. Traditional Bachata & other Partner Dances. Sound & Movement for Parkinson’s. RPG/D&D Inspired, Immersive Learning. & more!
- Program Design + Development. Program Management. Program Analysis + Evaluation.
- Outreach, Community, and Coalition Building + Fostering Connections.
- Communications: Press Releases. Copy Writing. Newsletter Design & Implementation + Social Media Planning and Implementation. Content Development. Editing. Copy Editing.
- Administrative work. Documentation.
- Legal documents, Memorandums of Understandings + Agreements. Intellectual Property Rights.
- Research.
- Graphic Design.