"I recently received my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, with a concentration in Publishing. For two years I was reading and writing constantly, within multiple genres, as a way of deepening my literary foundations. As part of a cohort of fellow students, I workshopped poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction works as a way of exploring, understanding, and expanding my craft. I also had the opportunity to engage with and learn from published local authors to better appreciate literature as an artform as well as a cultural and educational necessity. For my thesis, I had to produce a coherent work of over 40,000 words and then defend it for my thesis director. This equates to writing the first half of a novel, which is essentially what I ended up with. In defending my thesis, I had to cite dozens of literary influences for my work. That was the fun part.

Previous to my graduate degree, I spent four years achieving my Bachelors of Arts in English, which involved taking courses on American and British Literature, studying literary analysis and how it has evolved over the last century. I took courses on a wide variety works, some focusing on Shakespeare, Greek and Roman sexuality, British mythology, Vampires, early African American literature, and then Female Masculinity as my senior thesis. I also took classes in writing, primarily fiction and nonfiction prose. I wrote many essays, more than I can count, and the only difficulty I ever faced was keeping my work within the word limit.

Most of my tutoring has involved helping fellow students, especially when an assignment confused them. I pride myself on being able to take complex themes and break them down in to easily digestible anecdotes. My favorite experience is seeing the "lightbulb moment" when someone finally understands the deeper truth of a work. I have never wanted to be a teacher primarily because I prefer one-on-one teaching, though my primary experience for that has been teaching craft skills." less...