She holds a PhD in Human Sciences from The George Washington University, where she studied critical and cultural theory across multiple disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, and focused her research on children’s literature and culture. She also holds a BA and an MA in English from Virginia Tech, and she has taught English in junior high and high schools in both Virginia and North Carolina. Her articles have appeared in Children’s Literature, Pedagogy, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Bookbird, and Paradoxa, and she is the author of a book from the University of Iowa Press entitled Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children’s Literature.