I like to joke that I’m a recovering academic. As a former writing professor at Arizona State University and the University of San Francisco, I have studied, analyzed, and deconstructed the greatest works of literature–from Austen to Yeats.

I also sought out marginalized voices, stories outside of the traditional canon, and many of my literature courses focused on Ethnic American authors like Sandra Cisneros and Toni Morrison.  This allowed me to understand a wide range and breadth of different narrative techniques that I then incorporated into my courses about the art of memoir.

Unfortunately, while teaching, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, and everything changed. Would I survive? And if I didn’t, what would my legacy be? What would people remember about my life?

Once I recovered, I understood more than ever a person’s desire to tell their story–to reach across the generations and to say, I was here. I had a full, complex life, and I was here. So, I left academia and started my career as a ghostwriter specializing in memoir and never looked back!