Dinner with George R. R. Martin during Taos Toolbox 2018.

1)      My husband and I eloped to Florence, Italy during a semester break of graduate school.  We were one of the first weddings of the new year and the old ladies in the street shouted at us.  I thought they were saying something like ‘stupid American,’ but they were actually wishing us good luck.  We’ve needed that good luck.

2)      Our lives changed on August 7, 2010 when my then two and half year old was diagnosed with ALL – a form of leukemia.

3)      I don’t remember how old I was when I became a Christian, but I remember the moment –making my way down the pew in fits and starts, unsure whether I’d have the guts to go up to the pastor who always waited after the sermon.

4)   I waste too much time playing Trivia Crack on my phone.

5)  When my oldest daughter was 5 she and I went to Istanbul, Turkey to visit one of my best friends.  We stayed in Sultanahmet and walked to the palace, the Blue Mosque, and the grand bazaar before heading to the coast.  When she was a toddler, we took her with us to explore Mayan ruins in Tulum and Koba.  In 2014 we toured the ancient Pueblo dwellings in Bandalier and Mesa Verde.  This summer, 2019, we traveled from Arsenol to Monteverde to the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica. It’s the childhood I wished that I’d had.

6)  My M.A. is in English language and literature, but my focus is on comparative mythologies.  My Master’s Capstone explored the role of women in medieval Celtic texts.

7)  We’ve hosted au pairs from Japan, China, and Germany.  I’m still friends with most of them.  Most.

8)  My first year of grad school I taught 9^th grade English at an alternative school in Baltimore County.  That was tough.  Lots of stories.  Always use Lysol.  Say Romeo and Juliet is written in street slang.  Try not to take it personally when the students say a couple hours in school isn’t going to change their real world.

9)  I taught intro classes to Adademic Writing, World Mytholgoy, and American Folklore at University of Maryland.  Academically I’ve published “Mythological and Archetypal Images in ‘The Peach Thief’” and presented an excerpt from my Master’s research “Women in the Shadow” at a Rutgers Conference entitled Disciplinary Boundaries.

10)  I’ve always wanted to do the voices of animated characters or to read audio books.  Hayao Miyazaki is brilliant.  A part in one of his animated films would have been a genie-wish.

11) I’m a 200-hour certified yoga instructor. That’s my day job.

12) Pets: I currently have a retired brood bunny, off-the-track-Thoroughbred, and a foster fail black mouth cur.