I've been at Naropa for 8 years when I arrived as a graduate student of the MFA Creative Writing & Poetics. After graduating there was an admin role opening up in the School of the Arts where I was an administrative Coordinator for 8 different programs. Though my administrative role has evolved and shifted in responsibility (ever increasing), I have always helped to steer student events, and Summer Writing Program as well as larger University initiatives. My colleagues would probably describe my success as a protean combination of hardwork, creative intelligence, diplomatic compromise, and fun-loving collaboration. I role up my sleeves and put nose to grindstone, often burning the midnight oil on my own creative projects and productions after the work-day is done. My career in higher education is informed by a family legacy of pedagogues across multiple disciplines, volunteer experience in housing project areas and schools, and working as a Graduate Assistant at the university level. Having experienced higher education at the community college, Big10 & non-profit levels and holding leadership positions in various student life organizations (ie, Student Government, Alpha Epsilon Phi Sorority, study abroad, literary journals), I make a seasoned guide through departures into the unknown.When not working at Naropa, I am an active culture-corker dedicated to social justice strategies, abolitionism, and ecological interventions. I write, engineer literary artifacts, collaborate with local artists, engage in activism and produce events under the name "Swanee Astrid". As a creative writer, I am interested in astro-anthropology, language permutation, world building and contemporary mythopoetic narrative frameworks. My process incorporates these interests into a framework of writing as both trauma recovery and writing the future.
Listed skills include Editing, Social Media, Creative Writing, Writing, and 28 others.