I have two literary loves in my life, one high art and one base entertainment. 

Ever since I was 15 and heard Langston Hughes and Sylvia Plath, I fell in love with poetry.  My love affair with poetry has brought both success and challenges.  My highlights include earning an MFA from Hamline University, regular articles about literature published in Uptown Neighborhood News and read. write. poem., the founding of an online literary journal, Asphalt Sky, and my blog, 9 to 5 Poet .   My lowlights include four years of working retail to support my poetry writing, three boxes of half-finished journals buried in my garage, an addiction to buying good pens, and living without cable TV.

Despite living without cable TV, I love my movies.  I would almost call them an addiction.  My husband (Soulless Machine) and I get our main source from the video, but we’ve been known to haunt the amphitheaters at our local multiplex as well.  I was raised on movies, from the summers where we watched only Mel Brooks, or sandal & toga epics, or Bob Fosse musicals.  But truly, I will watch anything — as long as it immerses me in a story about characters who are nothing like me.

So there you have it.  Basically, I pair my Pinot Noir with beer-nuts.  And it couldn’t make me happier.