About

I didn't plan on being a storyteller. In fact, as a child I once told my parents I wanted to be a Black Jack dealer on a cruise ship.

Instead, through a series of missteps in the right direction, I ended up in documentary production. From NBC Page (in a very cute Brooks Brothers suit) to Emmy Award-winning Producer and Documentary Director. What drew me in was the idea of making change through storytelling. What I didn't anticipate was how much the work would teach me about the gap between good intentions and what can happen to people in the process.

Journalistic ethics are noble. I stand by the work and the people I made it with. But there's a ceiling, and I hit it. The work asked me to do things I didn't know how to do without cost — to ask for vulnerability I couldn't reciprocate, to leave people's complexity on the cutting room floor, to walk away when I wanted to stay. That friction built up over fifteen years until it became impossible to ignore.

When VICE closed, I left. To be more accurate, they showed us all out. My back also staged a fairly dramatic intervention around this time, which I did not appreciate but have since made peace with.

I started teaching more. I worked on indie docs outside of newsrooms. I trained as an end-of-life doula and worked with a client until she died. I wrote a memoir with a 96-year-old over homemade orange juice and chocolate bars.

Somewhere in there I stopped trying to optimize the process and started paying attention to the people inside it. That's where the work got interesting again.

Essential Storytelling is what accumulated from all of it. This is where I teach it.

As a Teacher

I'm a thorough and warm teacher, and I try not to take myself too seriously. I teach documentary production and nonfiction storytelling — grounded in real craft and guided by the Essential Storytelling methodology. Every time I teach, I learn something new, usually from fellow practitioners — which is probably my favorite part.

Where Else to Find Me

I teach at Maine Media Workshops + College, Downtown Community Television Center, and the Omega Institute. I'm available for speaking engagements at educational institutions and organizations working at the intersection of story and social change.