How has your Harvard Extension School (HES) experience helped you throughout your career journey? How do you expect it to impact your next steps?
I worked for the Harvard Music Department for 24 years, and took advantage of Extension School courses as often as I could; in the evenings, after work, and when it was possible, family-wise. Although I took a wide range of courses — religion, history, folklore, even musical theater — nothing prepared me for how my world would open up when I entered my first creative writing class in 2013.
I’d been writing books for years — mostly history and popular culture — and had a side hustle as a reporter, but when I sat down to write my first short story, it was as if I had found a room in my house I’d never known existed. I took more and more writing classes, and eventually entered the ALM program in Creative Writing and Literature.
The community of writers I found in my HES seminars was supportive, talented, and wildly diverse in writing style.
I loved that. I found the instructors helpful, miles beyond what’s required, and treasure some of them now as colleagues and friends. I will carry the influence and camaraderie of those writers — my fellow workshop mates and professors — wherever I go.
What did you learn about your own capabilities through the rigor of your coursework? Were there any moments in particular that pushed you to grow?
My thesis was a collection of short stories, and I had spent a year trying to link them together. My thesis advisor, the novelist Vanessa Diffenbough, read what I’d done and said quite simply, no, this doesn’t work at all. I spent the next year unlinking the stories, digging deeper, and (she was right) making them better.
Redoing something you think is done is a challenging but ultimately exciting process. I submitted the thesis, which was book-length, and a year later, a publisher bought the manuscript. Unaccustomed to Grace came out from Kallisto Gaia Press in 2022. From what I learned about writing, unwriting, and rewriting that book, I was able to successfully link a new set of stories together for my next book, Lake Song, which won the 2024 Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and was published by Mad Creek Books in September 2025. That push to rethink, revise, and rebuild changed everything.
Was there a turning point or moment during your experience at HES that changed how you see yourself or your future?
I took many extension courses to satisfy my curiosity and keep me engaged intellectually. They were wonderful. I kept going back to HES as a place to engage with new ideas and disciplines. When I entered the creative writing universe, though, I understood that it required a vision, a serious emotional investment, and a lifelong dedication to craft. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, when I committed to this, I opened a new chapter.
Describe your Extension experience in one word.
Pivotal.
