She came to Worcester from Columbia, Missouri, where she was the managing editor of the Missouri Review. Her fiction and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Denver Quarterly, the Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, and the Cimarron Review. She has a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2014 and a Special Mention in the 2016 Pushcart Prize anthology. She is a graduate of Harvard University, Oregon State University (where she earned her MFA) and the University of Missouri (where she earned her PhD in creative writing and literature).