I have been a Poetry, Creative Writing and Composition instructor for over fifteen years, with near-perfect student evaluations. I have also been a tutor for about ten years, specializing in ESL students and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. I have additional experience in editing, proofreading, committee work, and contest judging, as well as advising on graduate and undergraduate honors theses, as well.In terms of publications, I've published two fantasy trilogies. I've also published five poetry books (the latest is Ragged Eden, from Glass Lyre Press) and five poetry chapbooks. I've been fortunate enough to win eleven national prizes, including the Marjorie J. Wilson Poetry Award, the James Wright Poetry Award, the Annie Finch Prize for Poetry, the Laureate Prize, the Liam Rector First Book Award, the Brick Road Poetry Book Contest, and the Whirling Prize. My work has appeared in many journals, including: North American Review, Ploughshares, Arts & Letters, River Styx, Mid-American Review, Crab Orchard Review, Verse Daily, African American Review, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and others. I also dabble in creative nonfiction and have guest-lectured in fiction and screenwriting. In addition to my own CW projects, I am an active book reviewer and frequently publish literary criticism.My professional goal is simply to provide the best possible Creative Writing and Composition instruction to my students through an approach based on pragmatism, friendliness, honest classroom feedback, and one-on-one support. I am absolutely and thoroughly opposed to pretension in all its forms. In terms of writing, I suppose I'm trying to interject some humor and accessibility back into the often obscure landscape of contemporary poetry.Finally, I've spent a lot of time studying the evolution of Japanese poetry forms (haiku, senryu, tanka, etc.) and am pretty knowledgeable on their history and contemporary application.