About Me
Raised in the foster care system of Northern Maine, I am Irish, Pequot, and Canadian American. As a teenager I resided in the lively and artistic landscape of Baltimore, Maryland. Until the adoption that sparked my transition to urban life, I had never been to an indoor movie or seen an escalator. I grew up in potato and moose country with a little bit of french thrown in. I moved out on my own at age 17 and soon after my adopted mother passed away. Working since the age of 14, I have held numerous seemingly "unimportant" service oriented jobs and have maintained employment since. By 2008, I was the first in my biological family to graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Sociology and History with a focus on social movement history. During this time I had the honor of working for wonderful nonprofits including Green Peace, MaryPIRG, the local NAACP and Students for Barack Obama. After college I went on pilgrimage across the United States before working as a residential counselor at a youth run-away shelter in P.A. and then serving in South Dakota within the AmeriCorps VISTA program.
I am currently working on my Master's in Religion and Writing at my Alma Mater: Hood College while working as an computer instructor for local youth. I am a freelance writer who has been published in Contemporary Sociology as a book reviewer as well as in local news publications Want2Dish and my college paper. It's not much but I hope to continue on my path. I have been writing and collecting stories since I can remember.
Were you the kind of kid that got in trouble for always reading books? I was too. I am an avid long distance runner and a lover of the spiritual. My favorite writers include: Ursula K. Le Guin, Rumi, Hafiz, Charles De Lint, Jerry Spinelli, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou, Louise Erdrich, and Ruldofo Anaya, etc. etc. etc. etc.
I love to write. Please contact me if you are in need of a freelance writer for children's literature, academic work, poetry, prose, or anything that speaks to the soul. I love working with kids and teenagers that have aged out of the foster care system. My hope is to one day write fiction that includes their voices because I think they often go unheard. As a kid going up in the system, it's hard to find anything that reflects your life in pop culture. I want to write work that shows them how beautiful they are and how proud of themselves they should be for trying to make it in a world that doesn't acknowledge their struggle.
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”- Rumi
Thank you world,
d.m.