autobiography: gypsy expat -- resting in one place

As someone who grew up the child of a single-mother, the library was a haven for me. I read and read and read: books to entertain, to travel, to explore universes untold. Like every teacher/reader, I would like to write my own novel one day, and have some ideas, but in the meantime, I am happy to teach other literature, to share new ideas, and to meet the faces I see every day in the classroom. I often tell students the secret to happiness is to find something you would do everyday, even for free, and then find a job that does that.

I used to tell people my family had "gypsy blood". We traveled around the country, from Illinois, where I was born, to Kentucky, to Louisiana, to Mississippi and then to Florida, where I attended high school and started college. There I met my husband, who is military, and we continued our travels around the country to Washington state, Texas, and now, back to Louisiana. We have two kids and plans to continue traveling as much as is possible, but keeping a home-base here, until we can one day retire and cruise the world like backpacker students, scandalizing the kids.

I traveled briefly to London & Paris in 2002 and cannot wait to go back there for a longer period of time. In spite of the fact that I am an "American Lit" person, my favorite days in London were touring Shakespeare's haunts and finding my little Wife of Bath charm in Canterbury Cathedral and peering around the Bloomsbury district where Virginia Woolf once roamed.

I loved being in the classroom while a graduate student, discussing literature and teaching. I miss that interaction, and love to attend conferences where others with my passions are also talking about literature & life. I try to create that same environment in my own classes, and still, after ten years of teaching, literally get chills whenever students "go there" on their own.

Minority Lit and Feminism, Popular culture and film studies are my favorite paths into American Literature of all kinds. I believe the traditional canon of American Literature is enhanced, illuminated, and strengthened when we teach ALL of America's aspects of literary genius, together. When I create a syllabus, it's SO hard to limit the authors because I truly want to show my students an entire world of literature in sixteen weeks!