Greetings to you!

I am glad you are here. Let me introduce myself.

I am a retired educator, intrepid traveler, and nature lover.  I grew up in a Chicago suburb, have lived in the Philippines, England, and Germany, as well as Minnesota and New York and have traveled throughout the US and to over fifty countries.  As an educator, I was a professor and administrator at universities in Minnesota and New York and have served on a variety of regional and national boards related to literacy, the arts, and higher education.  I am always up for a new adventure to discover new places, their people and their cultures and have written and published poems about my experiences.  My travels in Southeast Asia inspired the poems in my first book, a chapbook entitled What We Bring Home (The Poetry Box, 2021).  

From a young age, I loved to garden and to visit natural wonders with my parents.   It was probably inevitable that, when I retired and started writing poetry seriously, I would first be inspired by the wild prairie, flowers, trees, and pond in my own backyard and by the fields, forests and lakes of Minnesota, where I now live.  I love to explore nature, both at home and abroad; if you invite me to an arboretum or botanical garden, I will always say “yes.”  My nature poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies and been exhibited in public spaces. Some of them are collected in my second book, just released, entitled So Much Depends on the Light (The Poetry Box, 2026).   

I’m married with two grown children and four grandchildren, who join me in tending gardens and learning the names of wildflowers and pollinators in my yard.

Susan