I’m an author, speaker, and consultant illuminating how the intersection of culture and policy shapes both individual lives & the planet.

Bring me to your organization.

My job as a writer is to ask questions bigger than any one discipline can hold and to tell stories more truthfully than most individuals can hazard. I infuse the sacred and the embodied back into conversations more often analytical, academic, political.

The Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes Foundation • Centre for Climate and Business Solutions at University of British Columbia with Sauder School of Business & Bradshaw Research Institute for Minerals and Mining (keynote) • Stanford University Students in Biodesign • Harvard Divinity School • New York University’s Center for Disability Studies • University of Utah Medical School Evening Ethics • International Neuroethics Society Conference • American Society of Journalists & Authors (keynote) • Ohio University Visiting Writer • Jackson Hole Writers Conference (keynote) • University of Nebraska-Omaha Medical Humanities • Science Policy Outreach Taskforce at Northwestern University • Stanford Storytelling & Medicine Summer Scholars Program • University of Washington Bioethics • Creative Destruction Lab at UBC: Biomedical Engineering Stream • University of Arizona College of Medicine • University of Colorado-Anschutz Cardiology Grand Rounds • University of Texas- El Paso • Colorado College Common Read Address • Illinois Society of Genetic Professionals • and many more!

Sample talk topics include:

#CyborgProblems: The Possibilities and Perils of Living with Implanted Medical Technologies

What Does It Cost to Save a Life?: Weighing the Promise of Medical Technology Against Its Personal, System, Ecological, and Social Costs

Who is the Hero of Your Heart Story?: How Medical Choices Shape Patients’ Lives (Cardiology Grand Rounds)

Writing the Book that Threatens To Kill You: Trauma Writing and the Spiritual Process of Becoming the Author Your Book Needs

Telling Your Heart Story: A Trauma-Informed Writing Workshop for Cardiology Patients and/or Providers

Do No Harm: How Healthcare Policy Shapes Lives

The Trauma-Informed Creative Writing Classroom

I offer custom trainings on managing trauma in the creative writing writing classroom.

In a typical 6-hour sequence, we’ll begin with an overview of how trauma works in the body, how to recognize symptoms of trauma in the classroom, and what we know about the intersection between trauma and writing—how it can heal us and when it can break us. We’ll overview the best practices for syllabus disclaimers, tools for talking to students about their topical choices, and why content warnings are limited in their effectiveness. We’ll discuss the role of the writing teacher vs. the mental health practitioner, as well as the obligations of the facilitator in terms of self-regulation and structural awareness. We’ll explore shame as a form of trauma and a toxic presence in the creative writing workshop.

After a lunch break, we’ll proceed under the assumption that essays including traumatic material will show up in the pile, digging into the craft problems of the trauma essay in order to create familiarity and build a craft toolbox that prevents content from eclipsing form. We’ll overview issues like black-and-white characters, the fragmentation of memory, and cognitive disorganization, and discuss how to elevate a personal story toward the universal—drawing on several tools I’ve adapted from clinical practice. We’ll keep an eye on how our feedback might land in an activated nervous system and overview what trauma-informed workshopping might look like. And we’ll identify individual instructors’ own personal activations and cultural beliefs that affect the way they respond to students (and take care of themselves).

Because we live in a society that is just beginning to understand what trauma is, because many instructors are living with over-activated nervous systems themselves, and because students are in many cases struggling to access mental healthcare and desperate for venues to explore their most devastating and charged experiences, I recommend leaving plenty of time for reflection, writing exercises, and conversations that allow faculty to fully take in this information and process their experiences.

Want me to consult for your organization, speak at your conference, visit your university, or appear on your podcast?

Submit a request below and I’ll be in touch with further questions or details. I can’t guarantee a “Yes!” until after I’ve examined my calendar, publicity flow, and income-generating commitments, but I’m so grateful for your interest.