Greetings!
I teach and serve as Artist in Residence at the Communication Leadership graduate program at the University of Washington Department of Communication in Seattle where my courses focus on long-form writing, listening, and participatory design. I am also on faculty at the Maine Media Workshop + College in Rockport where I teach life story writing through personal objects, as well as non-fiction essay writing across a variety of publishing formats.
My publications on the intersection of food and culture explore the preservation of food traditions in post-conflict societies as a means of sustaining community identity and have appeared in Saveur, Comstible, and Gastronomica. My debut collection of gastrography essays, Meet Me at the Bamboo Table: Everyday Meals Everywhere, was published by Chin Music Press. I have served as a book judge for the James Beard Foundation, happily eating my way through three categories of books.
The world was my oyster as a German Marshall Memorial Fellow and a Thomas J. Watson Research Fellow, the latter with a camera slung around my neck seeking black & white portraits of the next generation of female leaders in China. I also ate very, very well.
I consult with established nonprofits to hungry startups on a variety of communication needs, enthusiastically attend rural auctions in search of interesting chairs, and if it's swimming weather, I'm likely in a lake.
Be in touch with me here.