She grew up in Wyoming. She graduated from Carleton College, and from University of Massachusetts, MFA Program for Poets & Writers.
She is an Associate Professor in the English Department at James Madison University. She has also been a visiting writer at the University of New Mexico, and a faculty member of the Taos Summer Writers Conference.
Her work appeared in The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Poetry,West Branch, Denver Quarterly, LIT.