"I was born into a large, busy, loud family, all of whom loved reading. I wrote my first story at eight years old, and have been writing stories and books ever since. I've published six books, three through "traditional" publishers and three self-published. I love to write fiction, but have also published and enjoyed writing many essays and commentaries. In my years as a writing teacher, I've worked with freshman college students at many levels - some who simply needed a refresher in their writing skills, others who needed to work on the clarity of their thinking, and others who needed lots of help with simple grammar so that they could articulate their thoughts clearly. In all of these cases, my greatest joy came from helping students overcome their fear of writing.

I graduated from a program in Creative Writing, and was soon hired by a community college to teach freshman composition. I've taught basic essay writing, technical writing, research writing, argumentation, and basic writing classes such as grammar, paragraph writing, and introduction to the essay. At all of these levels, I find that the greatest challenge is to get students to trust their own thinking and place value on their own form of expression.

I teach writing as a process approach, trying to get each student to identify the process that works best for them based on their individual learning styles and forms of expression. I believe that, with the right guidance, any student can find a powerful voice through the written word. I've studied many schools of writing instruction, and have integrated portions of that thinking into my work over the years, but always with the thought that the greatest influence on how I should teach any individual student should come from my assessment of that students unique skills and voice.

In the years I have taught college-level writing, both at community and four-year colleges, I have developed an ability to see the potential in students from a wide variety of backgrounds and with varying cha" less...