Freelance writer specializing in travel features, food writing, and book reviews for a broad range of online and print publications since 1998. Author of personal essays, experimental nonfiction, and prose poetry with publications in major literary journals.Provide developmental editing, ghost writing, line editing, proofreading, copyediting, and research services to professional and nonprofessional writers. Move seamlessly between genres, styles, and subjects. Experienced as an editorial staff member for literary and commercial publications.College- and graduate-level instructor of creative writing, English-language literature, and introductory academic writing at American and international universities. Design seminars and workshops that facilitate student participation and interaction. Teaching assignments have ranged from supervising independent studies to lectures addressing several hundred people.Constantly in pursuit of new experiences on different continents, whether on assignment for a magazine, delivering a lecture, or on vacation. Visited over 30 countries and lived for periods of 3 months to 2 years in Latin America, Australia, Asia, and Europe. Conversant in Spanish with professional-level reading and writing ability, and familiar with Portuguese.Creator of Chocolate in Context, blogging about “chocolate as it relates to cooking, travel, society, pleasure, pain, and other things” since 2005. Conducted extensive research into the history and future of cacao in Guatemala between 2007 and 2010 in connection with writing the nonfiction manuscript In Search of Chocolá: Love, Chocolate, and Language in Guatemala. Received accolades and interviews from Epicurious; The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia; and Pittsburgh-based NPR affiliate radio station WYEP. Available to consult on related topics for individuals and companies in the chocolate industry.