About Me

I have been an editor and writer since 1979, except for a four-year period when I directed environmental education projects in New York City public high schools. I have been a full-time freelance editor and writer since 2003.

I started my editing and writing career as a financial reporter in New York City. In 1985 I began working as an editor at Youth Communication, a Manhattan-based youth journalism and writing program. Keith Hefner founded the program in 1980 to provide New York City youth with a forum where they could write about issues crucial to their lives that are usually ignored or suppressed by school newspapers—racial and ethnic identity, family issues, sexuality, and politics. Hefner was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship in 1989 for his work in youth development.

At Youth Communication I was editor of YCTeen, a general interest magazine, and was founding editor of Represent, a nationwide magazine written by young adults in foster care. Under my leadership, Represent received journalism awards from the Child Welfare League of America and the Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families. I was also an instructor in Youth Communication’s juvenile prison writing program at the Spofford Detention Center.

Youth Communication's alumni include bureau chiefs for Newsday and The New York Times, distinguished novelists and writers, including Edwidge Danticat, Veronica Chambers, and Ernesto Quinonez, and a corps of 2,000 young believers in the transformative power of writing. I worked for Youth Communication until 2002, and then started my own editing business.

I have an M.A. in English Literature from City College of the City University of New York and a B.A. in English Literature, with Honors, from the State University of New York at Binghamton. During 1990-91, I was a Charles A. Revson Fellow at Columbia University, one of ten fellows selected annually for an academic year of study. I live in upstate New York.