Gender	Female
Industry	Education
Occupation	Writer, Teacher
Location	Oklahoma, United States
Introduction	I'm me. I have a long and convoluted past. I lived more before I was 18 than most people do before they die, and I'm still living. My poetry focuses on what it means to be a middle-aged woman, in love and in the world. It's plain-spoken poetry with a surface meaning that is easy to grasp, and becomes more meaningful on subsequent readings. I write short fiction from varied points of view, including teens, men, and women. My Stories are peopled with the strong willed, the crazy, and the just plain lost. I am a tenacious researcher, which makes scholarly work difficult because it's hard to write until I'm sure I haven't missed anything. I love teaching English, because it's fun to discover new ways to help students understand, and particularly rewarding as I see my students grasp the concepts and skills they need to be successful. In the midst of my writing, my husband and I are remodeling our home. It's a do-it-yourself project because if you want it done right, do it yourself. We've been working on it for twelve years, and I'm not sure we'll be done in another twelve years. Life is good, though. I can't complain. (I actually complain a lot, but not so much about life itself.)
Interests	Writing, Poetry, Literature, Research, History, Crocheting, Cooking, Home Remodeling, Holidays, Calendars, and more.
Favorite movies	Gone With the Wind, Romancing the Stone, Overboard, My Life in Ruins, It's Complicated, Something's Gotta Give, Despicable Me, and more.
Favorite music	Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Paul McCartney, Garth Brooks, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Clint Black, Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz, John Lennon, José Feliciano, Kansas, David Bowie, Pearl Jam, Sammy Hagar, Meatloaf, Queen, Alan Jackson, Jackson Brown, James Taylor, Jethro Tull, Marcia Ball, The Moody Blues, Glen Miller, Leroy Parnell, B.B. King, Big & Rich, Brooks & Dunn, Juanes, and more.
Favorite books	Jane Eyre, The Sound and the Fury, Middlesex, Invisible Man, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Heart of Darkness, Frankenstein, The Lais of Marie de France, The Canterbury Tales, Tom Jones, Gulliver's Travels, Lady Oracle, Bag of Bones, All 7 Harry Potter, Beloved, Elements of Style, Gregory Orr, Billy Collins, Jo McDougall, Lucille Clifton, Lucille Hull, A. R. Ammons, Louise Glück, Dara Weir, Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Muriel Rukeyser, Walt Whitman (the war poetry), Marianne Moore, Alan Ginsberg, Flannery O'Connor, Tim O'Brien, Raymond Carver, Gabriel García Márquez, and more.

Describe the sound of a moist waffle falling onto a hot griddle.

There's no sound. Waffles come off of hot griddles, batter falls in.