"...however you may have come to it, whatever the opinions you might have professed, literature throws you into battle. Writing is a certain way of wanting freedom; once you have begun, you are committed, willy-nilly.”
—SARTRE
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
I graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in English writing and a dream to spend my life crafting vital human interest pieces for outlets like The New Yorker and The Atlantic, but like many in my cohort who graduated just before one of history's worst economic collapses, my professional journey has been a little different than what I imagined.
My first gig out of college was an internship with a documentary filmmaker in Philadelphia, managing blogs for his projects, writing copy for his email newsletters, and researching things like a Canadian gold mining company's implication in the sudden death of an environmental activist in El Salvador (including several international calls to Canada on my personal cell phone). Along with that slice of international intrigue, I was essentially doing content marketing before it was a buzzword.
That led to more roles in web content content creation, like three years of blogging small business marketing advice at a software company, writing and producing digital content for multiple universities, and writing keyword loaded articles for a tech start-up that generated leads for personal loan and insurance companies. I also organized and ran a publicity campaign to reunite all 6 of my siblings and me for the first time after 25 years of separation using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Craigslist, and local and national media pitches to share our story with the world (our Tumblr still generated media interest as recently as 2019).
True to my millennial stereotype, I find the most fulfillment doing work for organizations that make positive impacts on the world. That personal sense of mission led me towards several contract positions in print and digital communications for admissions, advancement, alumni relations, and university marketing at Temple University and La Salle University in Philadelphia. I wrote copy for a brochure and website promoting a new professional alumni network Temple had launched and a new series of donation "ask letters" for high profile donors. A year later, La Salle University contracted me for an open-ended assignment writing press releases; promotional copy for web pages, mailings, and emails; video scripts; and special features for their quarterly alumni magazine.
In 2016, I moved myself, my spouse, and our three cats 300 miles from Philadelphia to a tiny town in Vermont along the Connecticut River to serve as the editorial and digital content manager in Dartmouth College's Office of Communications. For 3 years, I project managed the planning and gathering of assets for stories on Dartmouth's news website, created original social media content with our social media director, reported on the college's annual United Way giving campaign for the campus community, and managed print and digital production of the annual commencement booklet.
When I'm not engaged in creating and managing content projects for other businesses and organizations, I'm usually outside exploring the mountains, valleys, and waterways of Vermont in its warmer months of April–October. You can also find me on Twitter, where I tweet to raise awareness for adoptee rights and justice issues that have very little public visibility. Before I moved up here, I hosted a weekly indie music show for an internet radio station in Philadelphia for six years. I've got plans for three podcasts that I really should just sit down and start recording. I'm also a pretty great swing dancer.
I graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in English writing and a dream to spend my life crafting vital human interest pieces for outlets like The New Yorker and The Atlantic, but like many in my cohort who graduated just before one of history's worst economic collapses, my professional journey has been a little different than what I imagined.
My first gig out of college was an internship with a documentary filmmaker in Philadelphia, managing blogs for his projects, writing copy for his email newsletters, and researching things like a Canadian gold mining company's implication in the sudden death of an environmental activist in El Salvador (including several international calls to Canada on my personal cell phone). Along with that slice of international intrigue, I was essentially doing content marketing before it was a buzzword.
That led to more roles in web content content creation, like three years of blogging small business marketing advice at a software company, writing and producing digital content for multiple universities, and writing keyword loaded articles for a tech start-up that generated leads for personal loan and insurance companies. I also organized and ran a publicity campaign to reunite all 6 of my siblings and me for the first time after 25 years of separation using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Craigslist, and local and national media pitches to share our story with the world (our Tumblr still generated media interest as recently as 2019).
True to my millennial stereotype, I find the most fulfillment doing work for organizations that make positive impacts on the world. That personal sense of mission led me towards several contract positions in print and digital communications for admissions, advancement, alumni relations, and university marketing at Temple University and La Salle University in Philadelphia. I wrote copy for a brochure and website promoting a new professional alumni network Temple had launched and a new series of donation "ask letters" for high profile donors. A year later, La Salle University contracted me for an open-ended assignment writing press releases; promotional copy for web pages, mailings, and emails; video scripts; and special features for their quarterly alumni magazine.
In 2016, I moved myself, my spouse, and our three cats 300 miles from Philadelphia to a tiny town in Vermont along the Connecticut River to serve as the editorial and digital content manager in Dartmouth College's Office of Communications. For 3 years, I project managed the planning and gathering of assets for stories on Dartmouth's news website, created original social media content with our social media director, reported on the college's annual United Way giving campaign for the campus community, and managed print and digital production of the annual commencement booklet.
When I'm not engaged in creating and managing content projects for other businesses and organizations, I'm usually outside exploring the mountains, valleys, and waterways of Vermont in its warmer months of April–October. You can also find me on Twitter, where I tweet to raise awareness for adoptee rights and justice issues that have very little public visibility. Before I moved up here, I hosted a weekly indie music show for an internet radio station in Philadelphia for six years. I've got plans for three podcasts that I really should just sit down and start recording. I'm also a pretty great swing dancer.
ADOPTEE ADVOCACY
I didn't know any other families like mine when I was a kid. I had four parents but wasn't allowed to see two of them because a judge, a lawyer, and my parents—the ones raising me—said so. I had six siblings but we couldn't play together because we were legal strangers to each other. I didn't even know where they lived. I was an only child in legal status but number five of seven genetically.
Because I had no siblings or adopted peers to guide me as I navigated my tangled-up identity, I turned to stories. I was drawn to tales of people losing and finding family and claiming that definition for themselves. But even in the world of literature about adoptees' journeys—like Anne of Green Gables or A Little Princess—I didn't see anything like my own reality reflected. In fact, I didn't see myself represented in any kind of media—movies, tv shows, even news reports. They all told binary stories of people who'd been abandoned and either fully embraced their adoptive families or left their adoptive families to fully embrace their biological roots. Neither reflected my experience or how I felt. I hadn't been abandoned. My biological mother wanted to keep me, but a lot of people in her life told her she didn't deserve me or any of my siblings. And I had a lot of love for the parents who adopted me. I was always curious about my genetic heritage and I desperately wanted to connect with my siblings, but that didn't mean abandoning the parents who were raising me. I always viewed reunion as adding to my family, not choosing one or the other, even though that's not how most popular media portrayed adoption relationships.
My experiences with adoption growing up have made me an active voice for adoptee perspectives online. I tweet about adoption topics that are underreported or are missing an adoptee perspective. I've shared my story on podcast episodes and began self-publishing articles on Medium during National Adoption Awareness Month in 2017. I actively advise adoptees and adoptive parents on Reddit. And for several years, I've been independently studying the history and cultural attitudes that have shaped adoption over the past century.
I am especially interested in how the language we use to talk about adoption shapes cultural perceptions, misconceptions, and prejudices towards adoption triad members (if you're open to collaborating on research around this, please drop me a line!). For example, we use the same word to describe rescuing an abandoned pet from a shelter as we do for adding a child to our family through adoption. Does that language parallel impose a false rescue narrative on stories about human adoption? I want to find out, and then I want to work to change the words we use to describe how adoption and families work in our culture. Because if there's one thing that adoption has taught me, it's that the experience of family doesn't have the strict definitions and artificial boundaries that Western culture suggests. My family extends beyond legal definitions, shared experience, and DNA, and if more people understood that, I believe it could improve child welfare and adoption policy for many families.
I did eventually meet my siblings, by the way. The seven of us connected in college through a series of reunions, and my oldest sister wrote a book about it, which I think everyone should read (but I might be a little biased).
Because I had no siblings or adopted peers to guide me as I navigated my tangled-up identity, I turned to stories. I was drawn to tales of people losing and finding family and claiming that definition for themselves. But even in the world of literature about adoptees' journeys—like Anne of Green Gables or A Little Princess—I didn't see anything like my own reality reflected. In fact, I didn't see myself represented in any kind of media—movies, tv shows, even news reports. They all told binary stories of people who'd been abandoned and either fully embraced their adoptive families or left their adoptive families to fully embrace their biological roots. Neither reflected my experience or how I felt. I hadn't been abandoned. My biological mother wanted to keep me, but a lot of people in her life told her she didn't deserve me or any of my siblings. And I had a lot of love for the parents who adopted me. I was always curious about my genetic heritage and I desperately wanted to connect with my siblings, but that didn't mean abandoning the parents who were raising me. I always viewed reunion as adding to my family, not choosing one or the other, even though that's not how most popular media portrayed adoption relationships.
My experiences with adoption growing up have made me an active voice for adoptee perspectives online. I tweet about adoption topics that are underreported or are missing an adoptee perspective. I've shared my story on podcast episodes and began self-publishing articles on Medium during National Adoption Awareness Month in 2017. I actively advise adoptees and adoptive parents on Reddit. And for several years, I've been independently studying the history and cultural attitudes that have shaped adoption over the past century.
I am especially interested in how the language we use to talk about adoption shapes cultural perceptions, misconceptions, and prejudices towards adoption triad members (if you're open to collaborating on research around this, please drop me a line!). For example, we use the same word to describe rescuing an abandoned pet from a shelter as we do for adding a child to our family through adoption. Does that language parallel impose a false rescue narrative on stories about human adoption? I want to find out, and then I want to work to change the words we use to describe how adoption and families work in our culture. Because if there's one thing that adoption has taught me, it's that the experience of family doesn't have the strict definitions and artificial boundaries that Western culture suggests. My family extends beyond legal definitions, shared experience, and DNA, and if more people understood that, I believe it could improve child welfare and adoption policy for many families.
I did eventually meet my siblings, by the way. The seven of us connected in college through a series of reunions, and my oldest sister wrote a book about it, which I think everyone should read (but I might be a little biased).