I was born in New York and at the age of seven moved to Los Angeles with my family.  My sister and I told everyone we were moving to a swimming pool.  I began writing poetry in my journal when I was about ten years-old.  My first poems were about children, a phony fortune teller, the question of an afterlife, and an anti-war poem called Warheads.  I attended the University of California in Santa Cruz.  It was during my college years that I began working in the HIV/AIDS field, work which I continue to do to this day.  At UCSC, I took numerous poetry workshops, participated in readings, and I had my first poems published.  Looking back, these poems were about solitude, escapism, and drunken love.  A year after college, living in San Francisco I decided to apply for MFA programs in creative writing.  I was surprised to see that the applications required you to choose between poetry and fiction, and I marked 'poetry' on each.  But while completing my applications, I thought- I don't know how to write fiction, if I'm going to go back to school it might as well be to learn something I don't know.  I sent for new applications and applied to three programs in New York.  I went to Sarah Lawrence College, and received my MFA in creative writing- Fiction.  An early draft of The Sign for Drowning was my thesis.  In 2008 my first novel, The Sign for Drowning was published by Trumpeter.  I am still writing about children, impermanence, loss and the workings of the heart.  I currently live in Brooklyn and am working on my second novel.