Hello, and welcome!

I’m an author, illustrator, artist, and suicide attempt and loss survivor. I’m also a chronically ill/disabled parent. Over the years my writing has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, including Gettysburg Review, Colorado Review, and Shambhala Sun. I’ve spoken about my lived experience as a survivor of suicide to crowds as big as 4,000 and books clubs as small as 6. In 2014 I won the Beacon Street Prize in Nonfiction, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In 2015 my memoir A Different Kind of Same was published, and was named Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association.

My artwork has recently appeared in Photo Trouvee Magazine (issues 7 and 10), the Making Space show at the Lill Street Art Center, This is Your Allowance at Positive Space Studios, Tiny Works at the Fulton Street Collective, the 2023 Terrain Biennial, the Angelica Kauffmann Gallery, and more.

Support

(Extra) Soft Animal posts are free, but if my work speaks to you and you’d like to contribute financial support, there are stickers and art involved! If you’d prefer not to do a paid subscription through Substack (totally understandable), you can do one directly through me here.