She received a BA from the University of Montana and an MFA from the University of Alabama. She taught at the University of Miami, the Inland Northwest Center for Writers, New College of Florida, and the University of Colorado at Denver before joining the LSU English department in 2012, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in short fiction and the novel. She also serves as the faculty adviser for The New Delta Review and as the co-director for the departmental reading series, Readers & Writers.