Painting

Decades after a brief stint of painting in college, I felt compelled to paint again in March 2022. I painted more than one hundred paintings in a month and now paint at a more measured pace. To date I have sold one painting and enjoy sharing them on social media.

Piano

I have played piano since early childhood. My father was a medical researcher and physician so we moved to follow funding opportunities. This prevented any continuity in my instruction so at 16 I started to improvise based on what I learned from four or so different teachers.

Narrative Medicine

After attending Columbia University’s Narrative Medicine Workshops, I worked with my colleagues at Lenoir-Rhyne University to form the first Certificate Program in this newly recognized field within western clinical medical practice. I teach doctors, surgeons, counselors, clergy, and writers. Whereas the field launched with a heavy focus on learning Narratology, it has now settled down into being the same as Creative Writing and Storytelling scientifically proven to heal in any modality. This is the subject of Bee Bread. My students won me the Raymond Bost Distinguished Professor Award.

Alchemy

Scientific evidence supports the therapeutic impact of Storytelling and Creative Writing. This is alchemy wherein we transform the base metals of our hardship and suffering into the gold of our telling about it. It does not need to be perfect–nothing is. It just needs to be in the world, not stored in our heads and bodies. I used alchemy to heal from a trauma that left me nearly speechless and entirely uncreative. I have used its simple seven-stage system to maintain calm in the turbulence, as well as to help others discover their own creative self.

Teaching

I have taught since 1991, roughly three decades. I started out in a tiny village school in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica where children sat three to a desk, shared workbooks with barely erased answers from previous use, and had one pencil to last the entire schoolyear. I’ve since taught at the Basic Education and GED Lab at Peninsula College, Juvenile Evaluation Center, Buncombe County Jail, Western Youth Medium-Security Prison, Univeristy of North Carolina-Asheville, Christ School for Boys (an Episcopal boarding school), Asheville-Buncome Community and Technical College, Great Smokies Writing Program, and at Lenoir-Rhyne University.

400 5-Star Reviews for Dogsitting

Since I was eight years old, I have loved many dogs. For five years, I dogsat professionally for Rover, the app. It was a truly magical time for my daughter and me. We started just five months before the pandemic, and throughout the shelter-in-place seasons, we cared for the pups of people who had to travel for work. We discovered we had gifts for this, earning us 400 five-star reviews and a whole community of repeat canine guests, all of whom we loved as our own. At our busiest times, we hosted as many as twenty-two dogs. We discovered pack-consciousness wherein we aligned with all the dogs, maintaining calm happiness for days at a time. It was wondrous.