When I discovered Mary Oliver’s poetry, I was a young poet in a Pasadena café. I was sipping my usual coffee at my usual table, but as I read her poem “Swan,” I knew my life had been changed somehow. Indeed, her work quickly became integral to my growth, educating me both as a writer and in my relationship to the natural world. My early encounters with Oliver’s poetry illuminated the power and possibility of the genre and inspired in me a new sense of personal poetic identity. After eight years as a working writer, I enrolled at Grand Valley State University to complete my B.A. in Integrative Studies with a focus in Poetic Ethics. Years after my first reading of “Swan,” and just months after I was diagnosed as autistic, I began research into what I call Autistic Poetics, or the relationship between autism and poetry. I kept a research journal based on close readings of Oliver’s poems, intending only to query what autistic thought could teach us about poetry. I soon learned I had underestimated just how far-reaching the answer to this question would be, not only incorporating literature and disability studies, but linguistic justice and ecological ethics, too. This research has transformed how I perceive my work as a poet and the significance of autistic poetry in and for the earth. My research suggests that poets are bridge-builders: we utilize language in a way that transcends typical speech and prose to help a reader gain access to undiscovered parts of their sensory experience. We do this so that they may relate to their surroundings in surprising new ways–ways that, in fact, reflect the everyday experience of many autistic people. This means poetry is uniquely suited to communicate autism from the inside in a language that can be understood by non-autistic readers, creating a crucial common ground for disability justice. But while there is much to be said about the power of the poetic word, Autistic Poetics also highlight the importance of poetic silence. Autistic people–including many who do not use speech as their primary mode of communication–often report fluency in what autistic anthropologist Dawn Prince calls the language of silence: a wordless, intuitive knowing of the speechless world around them. It blurs the divisions that separate us as humans from other life. From this, autistic people commonly express feeling especially connected to the non-human world. Autistic poets, then, are interpreters. We have a unique ability to communicate on behalf of the earth, translating her silent voice in ways that can be understood by readers of every neurotype. This capacity for translation, and its potential benefits for the living world, is now at the heart of my work in Autistic Poetics. As I researched, I wondered what would happen to humanity’s relationship to the planet if we more frequently engaged it through silence. Might the absence of linguistic categorizing–using words to separate humanity from the rest of the living world–lead to deeper interrelatedness and therefore deeper care? My research suggests it does. And a poetics that honors this silence provides a bridge between silent nature and the human domain of language. If applied, Autistic Poetics may have profound implications for how we conceptualize ecology and engage the arts in our conservation efforts. Now I seek my Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing to further this research and invest in my growth as a writer and future educator. In addition to pursuing publication as a poet and essayist, I hope to teach poetry, creative nonfiction, and Autistic Poetics to undergraduate students. While there are many books I would recommend widely, in the spirit of this research, I want to recommend Mary Oliver’s “Why I Wake Early.” Of all her poetry books, this is one of my favorites. As someone whose work is about remembering our connection to the earth, there’s little like beginning the day with Oliver’s words: “Hello, sun in my face. / Hello, you who make the morning / and spread it over the fields / … / to hold us in the great hands of light– / good morning, good morning, good morning.”

As a writer, my career has been unusual. I am a published poet. I first began my work running a small business making poetry art prints and writing custom poems. I've written hundreds of poems over the last ten years, and it's been a wonderful stretching of my creative capacities. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and as my work took off, I began receiving requests to participate in multimodal collaborations. As someone whose "first language" in art is words, this was a bit of a surprise to me, but one I welcomed. Grandparents on both sides of my family were visual artists. My father and I both are musicians. My great-grandmother, the wife of an Iowan farmer, was a published poet. The arts are in my bones. So when I was asked to write poetic scripts for short films, I jumped at the chance. My words became performance pieces, accompanied by music and moving picture. Then I was invited to be a part of a collaboration with an esteemed choreographer I know. In a brick room with massive windows on the top floor of a studio in LA, I performed a spoken word piece in the middle of a live dance performance. A couple months later, we did it again for video. Later, I moved to Nashville with my wife, a singer-songwriter, and began cowriting music with her. Songs I've cowritten have been purchased by Meta's music initiative and cut on full-length studio records. I also had a poem set for a choir by composer Paul Langford. This piece was picked up and published by Hal Leonard Music Publishing. Meanwhile, I was still writing regularly for my custom poetry business. One afternoon, in June of 2020, when social tensions were high in the throes of the pandemic, I was approached by an arts organization with a grant offer. They asked me to write 43 poems about love, which, upon their completion, were handwritten and hung in a gallery alongside collages they inspired. In early 2022, another artist reached out to me. His name is Harry Castle, and he's an award-winning composer and doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan. He asked whether he might be able to set my poem, "Go on child," for choir. I gave my permission, and a couple months later received a demo of the composition he had made. I was blown away. It was extraordinary. His setting of "Go on child" went on to win the University of Michigan's 2022 Brehm Prize for Choral Composition, and was premiered by their chamber choir earlier this year. It was so celebrated and warmly received that Harry and I have decided to collaborate on another project, this one a full-length, 60-minute song cycle. I am authoring it as a part of my undergraduate practicum, and he will be setting it to music upon its completion. We have already cast it and are aiming for a premiere, studio recording, and potential tour. We've also lined up an incredible projectionist whose passion is bringing modern visuals to classical music, who, funding permitted, has agreed to work on our show. We are working on this actively. As all this is happening, I am applying for my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. My goal is to continue writing, both for the page and for the greater arts community. That education is what I seek funding for here. Regarding the link below, that's a great picture of what I do overall. Access is restricted. Please request access and I will gladly grant it!

When I look to my future self, I see: An author and educator with her MFA, who is living with her wife and son in a place they feel safe and calm, setting an example of the tenacity and creativity of late-diagnosed autistic women, and forging an easier way forward for her autistic child.

I considered myself an artist before I considered myself anything else. I'm talking preschool, when I could feel in my body a growing love for singing and drawing. In first grade, I decided I would be a ventriloquist, using my own handmade dummies. In second, I would be a comic book artist, illustrating the antics of Hubert and Rod, a little boy with enormous glasses and his pet rat. It was in third grade I decided I want to be a writer. That one stuck. First I wanted to be a novelist, then a journalist, then a playwright. I attended a thespian festival in Nebraska (with, of all people, Chasten Buttigieg, who I had a crush on at the time, as I hadn't yet realized both of us are gay). I grew up in a very evangelical community. My dad was a pastor and I was involved in the arts in our bring-them-to-Jesus-with-theatre type churches. I am also a musician and spent a lot of time playing music in our church bands, securing a paid internship when I was 17 to lead the youth music department. By the time I graduated high school, I felt increasing social-spiritual pressure from my community to pursue something more... Godly... than art. In 2009, I enrolled in Bible college in the city where they filmed "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once," just forty-or-so minutes north of LA. My pursuit of life as an artist took the backburner for several years then as I fought with myself over what a meaningful career would look like. I considered theological work, humanitarian work, social work. I considered working for nonprofits or churches. I dropped out of college. I felt completely unmoored. I was still playing music almost daily, with friends, occasionally solo shows for fairs or charity gigs, but my daily orbit was around something that felt very much like an identity crisis. That is until I wound up in a church(-turned-cult) square in the middle of Hollywood. At the time, they considered themselves "a church for the arts." They'd have aerialists dance around the ceiling to Bible excerpts read like spoken word poetry. They'd play One Republic songs and dancers would throw colorful powder and beachballs into the air while the congregation jumped and cheered. It seems absurd to me now, it really does, but at the time it felt new and creative and inspired. I joined the band and had a full-time job's worth of free labor exploited for three years while I struggled to pay my bills. While I was there, I fell into deep loneliness. Despite being surrounded by so-called friends, I was the subject of constant criticism and derision. I was left out of group trips to baseball games and fireworks displays, I'm still not sure why. I was constantly living in a state of low-grade heartbreak. Then, one afternoon, sitting alone in a coffee shop, I picked up my pen and started writing again. Poetry was, from that moment, my salvation. It became my prayer book, my scripture. I went nowhere without a Mary Oliver book in my bag, turning my attention wherever I could to the lilies and the crickets and the Wild Geese. I left the community and, for the first time in ten years, really felt free. Since then I've been writing. I've been published. I've authored lyrics for award-winning choral compositions. I've returned to school with the ambition to get my M.F.A. in creative writing. I hope to write, edit, and teach for the rest of my life. I'm finally doing what I love, where I belong.

It was a weird shock of grief and pride when I discovered I’ve been managing the challenges of autism for decades without knowing it. My diagnosis came late. I started suspecting autism early last year and was finally handed my report a couple weeks after my thirty-third birthday. I was running a small business, married four years, and the mother of a two-year-old boy. Still, the challenges of autism have been with me for as long as I can remember, and I've had to be creative, tenacious, and very brave to live an enriched and fulfilling life. Growing up, I was frequently misunderstood. I always said what I meant, as clearly as I could. But this was often met with rancor or disbelief, and was often told I was a kind of person I didn't at all identify as. Everyone seemed to think they knew me better than I knew myself. I was baffled by being constantly mischaracterized. I had no idea why I was the only person I knew who experienced this. This was an incredibly exhausting, painful experience that led to extensive burnout, depression, and anxiety. It was the reason I left school when I did in my early twenties. Embracing autism and learning to trust myself has been a healing process. Therapy has helped with this. There are also the daily challenges of autism—phone calls, dishes, roughhousing with my toddler at the end of the day when my energy’s spent. I have the support of an amazing community for those things, my wife most of all. She carries weight where I struggle so I can carry weight where I’m strong. But whether they’re the small tasks or the work of a lifetime, I’ve learned transparency, vulnerability, and courage are the key to getting through. When I am seen and understood, I feel safe, energized, and able to ask for the help I need. I have been writing professionally for about eight years now, but writing has been my heart’s work since I was nine years old. I was a very early reader, and have been drawn to language my entire life. The first career I ever wanted (aside from wanting to be, in preschool, “a skunk”) was to be a writer. It’s still the career I want. Right now, I run a small business writing custom poetry, and selling art prints of my poems. I’ve had some success—I’ve been published in a history journal, and I’ve had two songs set for choirs, to name just a couple highlights. But while I am grateful to work doing what I love, I feel like I have grown as much as I know how to grow on my own. I want to keep growing. So I'm returning to school with the short-term plan of getting my Bachelor of Arts, and the long-term plan of getting my MFA. I intend to continue pursuing a career in writing. I'd like to work as an editor or educator. I hope, through supporting other writers, I might help hone the voices of people whose experience is utterly different than mine, empowering them to write with mastery and integrity. This is also work I see as urgent as a member of the autistic community. If there can be greater understanding of our process, greater belief in our potential, maybe future generations of autistic people won't have to struggle through their education as I have. I believe, through growing as a writer myself, I will be a strong advocate for people like me, and continue buoying readers with kindness, warmth, and imagination.

If you asked me ten years ago where I would be today, I never would have guessed it would be here. As a pastor's daughter raised in American Evangelicalism, I was taught distrust for my body as a sign of spiritual maturity. "The spirit is willing," after all, "but the flesh is weak." Earnest as I was to be good, I did everything I could not just to judge my body, but to ignore her completely. So the life I have now—a queer marriage, our queer motherhood—would have been quite a shock if I'd seen it coming. The road to this life was painful, and often (particularly in this time of horrific violence) still is. But I am immensely proud of my own courage, the life it's given me. I am settled, quiet, at peace in my body. I am a poet married to a brilliant woman, a songwriter whose work challenges and inspires me. I am one of my son's mothers, and this is the joy of my life. Our family grows quietly together, loves one another generously and seriously, with certainty. We are more a garden than a parade. That works for us. Often the public-facing stories of LGBTQ+ people fall into dramatic dualities. We are presented either in the chaos of our pain or our parties. And those realities are true, ones I've experienced myself. But they're only snapshots of my experience, not anything close to the whole story. As a writer, one of my aspirations is to tell stories of queerness that fall outside this duality—not to minimize the stories that already exist, but to broaden the narrative to include more of us (I mean this in both senses of the phrase: more of us numerically, and more of each one of us, the complexity of our inner worlds). I am back in school because I have wanted to challenge myself as a writer. I'm finishing my B.A. so I can go on for my M.F.A. in creative writing. I intend to keep writing poetry, to see myself published more, to eventually write a book. I'm exploring editing and teaching too. Wherever I wind up, I know queerness is at the heart of my creativity, offering its daily gift of seeing the world as a place of possibility. If all we have of God is the earth we stand on, the water that covers it and makes trees to grow, and one another, I believe it is enough. Who is God if not the divinity that courses through everything that lives? Please do not tell me love is not inherently holy. I learn God through mine every day. I learn God through this longing: to be closer, to know, to touch, to understand. An aching to be nearer yet, nearer yet. This, I have come to think, is what it feels like to pray. I did not know what it meant to feel the peace of God, until I, curled up beside the woman I love, felt the sun of her presence, felt the soft humanity of her skin, felt my body exhale. (My need to move, to always move, let out a deep sigh and closed its heavy eyes.) They say the love of God must be held with fear and trembling, and for years I thought it meant to shrink, to hide. Now, I consider my mortality; that I will, yes, I will die, and so will she, and that nothing, nothing, scares me more. Still, what can I do but love her wholly? To love her: Holy. (Why bother to argue the details?)

From very, very early in, the people around me understood that I was a bit different. They couldn't quite find words for it, but I think my mother got closest. I wasn't the black sheep of the family, but her "rainbow sheep." I was endlessly creative, deeply sensitive, passionate about fairness and justice. I was musical, thoughtful, and curious. I was also constantly in trouble, and constantly confused as to why. I had a hard time making sense of the world around me. I stood out without meaning to, for better or worse. I've lived my life this way, both standing out for my talent and insight, and struggling to fit in even when I gave it my best effort. Last year, at 33 years old, I finally found out why: I'm autistic. Women are often diagnosed late, particularly women of my generation and older, since when we were young, autism was still largely thought to be a condition that affected mainly boys. So rather than being understood as smart, caring, and autistic, I was thought merely to be lazy when I struggled in academic settings, and difficult when I struggled in social ones. I lived feeling misunderstood. Still, I leaned into my integrity and did my best to stay whole and connected to my values. This wasn't so much a choice as it is a part of who I am, but it's a part of myself that I'm proud of. I've found people seem to find it easier to celebrate others' uniqueness when it's a choice, and much harder to celebrate when someone is just plainly, fundamentally different. But that fundamental "different-ness" is the reason I am who I am, and I believe it deserves to be celebrated too. I am incredibly connected to my values, and would rather be ostracized from a community than sit silent when there's injustice - and I have been ostracized for speaking up, many times. This has been painful for me, but it's also the reason others who are mistreated by harsh communities find me trustworthy, generous, and kind. I would far rather be a soft place for those who are alienated than for those who wield power to alienate. I view the world from a unique angle. This allows me to see possibility and opportunity where others have felt stuck. And I am achingly sensitive. It's a huge misconception that autistic people lack empathy. I move through the world feeling, often, like an exposed nerve, profoundly sensitive to the pain and mistreatment of others. I come to my community with an open heart, a willingness to listen and learn, and a desire to see things change for the better. I try to give back to my community wherever I can. I am a member of our city's Mayor's Next Gen Advisory Group. It is a community advocacy group where we participate in important conversations about equity in Grand Rapids, volunteer for greening initiatives and river cleanups, and work to better our neighborhoods in practical ways. Within that group, I also consider myself an advocate, challenging my cohort to diversify the ways we think about leadership, and the opportunities we provide for members to engage as leaders. It is not always or only the most charismatic, extroverted, or widely celebrated who should be deemed leaders. Sometimes it takes a quiet, peculiar misfit to open our eyes to new ways of seeing, doing, and being. I believe that's something I bring to the table just by being the autistic woman I am.

As the Jewish mother of a two-year-old Jewish son, I have felt the rising tides of anti-Jewish hate like a bone-deep chill. As a queer woman who loves someone, I carry the knowledge of the rapid increase in violent homophobia like a weight around my neck. As a late-diagnosed autistic woman, my budding awareness of issues of both accessibility and autonomy keep my mind spinning while the world around me sleeps. The fact that these are only a few of this country's many injustices is beyond overwhelming. If I'm being honest, I have days when I struggle to leave the house. A core part of my Jewish identity comes from what we call 'tikkun olam.' Repairing the world. I feel a profound sense of responsibility to all life, to the earth and its tireless will to go on living, and I have dedicated myself to meeting it with the same commitment to healing. It is not a selective act - I don't get to repair the world only for people who are like me, or support me. Repairing the world means healing something here for us all. I hope, in that healing, we might see one another more clearly, with compassion and generosity, and with a sharp sense of understanding that life is good and worth preserving for all of us. I participate in this work in several concrete ways. I serve. I am a member of Grand Rapids' "Mayor's Next Gen Advisory Board," in which I get together with people from various backgrounds, as well as our mayor, to talk about how we can improve our city for all its residents. We discuss legislative priorities, like affordable housing and climate change, offer input, and learn from experts in our districts. We also participate in city clean-ups and greening initiatives, where we plant trees in parts of the city that lack them. Hundreds of trees are planted here every year as a result of this work. I speak. I am also newly back in school to finish my bachelor's degree in Integrative Studies, with a certificate in Global Communications. In my classes, I am outspoken about my experiences. My classmates know about my disability, my family, my tradition. I decided from the outset that I wanted to come to the classroom with unapologetic transparency, because this not only sets me up for better success in a setting where I used to struggle quietly, but it builds bridges. It sparks curiosity. Curiosity, I think, is the birthplace of empathy, and empathy is itself a healing power. Tikun olam. Finally, I listen. The goal is not just to get others to ask questions, but to meet them all with the same curiosity I desire. I am a critical thinker, and I'm content to admit what I don't know. I'm unafraid to ask questions. Right now, I have a newsletter on Substack that ranks in the top 100 in literature. I've recently begun using that platform to host guest writers, including Kaitlin Curtice, an indigenous author and speaker, and Courtney Ariel Bowden, a Black songwriter-storyteller, activist, writer, and Ph.D candidate. I feature their work and ask deep, thoughtful questions about it, knowing somewhere, someone else may be wondering the same thing. When we listen, we learn. When we learn, we change. We make a better world by engaging one another with wonder.

I've always had a complicated relationship with education. I love learning. This has been true as long as I can remember. Before I turned three, I taught myself to read. I read anything I could get my hands on, from cereal boxes to VCR manuals. I absorbed all the information I could—facts about elephants' knees, the biological connection between rhinoceroses and horses. I could identify different swords by the shape of their blades. I was an odd kid, certainly. But I was sharp, eager to understand, and motivated to explore the world. I began writing, and by age nine knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. But when I began public school, everything shifted. Suddenly I was bored, rehashing things I learned very quickly, or I was out of my depth, unable to keep up with my classmates. Our self-paced reading program was the only thing that kept me afloat in a system that became increasingly perplexing. By high school, my GPA had dropped troublingly. Then, after years of struggling in college, my anxiety around math was enough to slow me to a stop. I dropped out just one class shy of my associate's degree. Leaving school did not mean leaving learning, though. My longing to absorb life and interpret it wisely, to understand what I can of the world, has never grown tired. I started writing for a living, and am now a published poet. I spent a year learning other languages as I traveled—literally—all the way around the world. Still, I have always felt untapped potential hidden somewhere in me. This raised so many questions. This year, I finally got some answers. At 33-years-old, I was diagnosed with autism. Finally, a clue to why I struggled so much in school. The system was not built for brains like mine, whose growth is asynchronous, whose sensitivity to the environment causes constant overwhelm, whose social difficulties become a bewildering distraction. Teachers dismissed me as lazy, aloof, because my perceived intelligence didn't match my levels of success. I bought into this for a long time. Recognizing I am autistic made me feel less like a failure. Actually, it made me feel proud. Proud that I got so far without support or necessary self-understanding. Seeing myself in this new light sparked something: a desire to try again. Now I am the mother of a two-year-old boy who is so much like I was at his age. He knows the names of his planets (and corrects me when I mislabel them), his alphabet, his numbers, identifies birds by their calls. He is peculiar and hilarious and precocious and beautifully odd. I am eager to get back to school for myself, for my own yearning and sense of accomplishment. But beyond that, I am eager to show him what brains like ours can do when we enter challenging spaces with self-understanding, trust in our minds and our enthusiasm for learning, and willingness to ask for support when we need it. Applying for scholarships like this one have been, for me, an act of determination. We don't have the funds to get me back to school, and I'm reluctant to take out loans when we already have a number of outstanding debts. My family is the priority, and making sure we aren't overwhelming ourselves for my schooling is important to me. Finances really are the last hurdle for me in reestablishing myself as a student. I plan to attend school as full-time as finances allow. Thank you so much for considering me for this scholarship - it means everything!

I've always had a complicated relationship with education. I love learning. This has been true as long as I can remember. Before I turned three, I taught myself to read. I read anything I could get my hands on, from cereal boxes to VCR manuals. I absorbed all the information I could—facts about elephants' knees, the biological connection between rhinoceroses and horses. I was an odd kid, certainly. But I was sharp, eager to understand, and motivated to explore the world. I began writing, and by age nine knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. But when I began public school, everything shifted. Suddenly I was bored, rehashing things I learned very quickly, or I was out of my depth, unable to keep up with my classmates. Our self-paced reading program was the only thing that kept me afloat in a system that became increasingly perplexing. By high school, my GPA had dropped troublingly. Then, after years of struggling in college, I dropped out just one class shy of my associate's degree. Leaving school did not mean leaving learning, though. My longing to absorb life and interpret it wisely, to understand what I can of the world, has never grown tired. I started writing for a living, and am now a published poet. I spent a year traveling and learning other languages. Still, I have always felt untapped potential hidden somewhere in me. This year, I finally got some understanding. At 33-years-old, I was diagnosed with autism. Finally, a clue to why I struggled so much in school. The system was not built for brains like mine, whose growth is asynchronous, whose sensitivity to the environment causes constant overwhelm, whose social difficulties become a bewildering distraction. Teachers dismissed me as lazy, aloof, because my perceived intelligence didn't match my levels of success. I believed this for a long time. Recognizing I am autistic made me feel less like a failure. Actually, it made me feel proud. Proud that I got so far without support or necessary self-understanding. Seeing myself in this new light sparked a desire to try again. I'm returning to school now with the long-term plan of getting my MFA. I intend to continue pursuing a career in writing. I'm actively working as a poet, and would love to expand creatively into authorship. Beyond that, though, I want to work as an editor or an educator. I have a clear mind when it comes to words, pace, storytelling. I know I would offer valuable insights to other writers. I also would do so kindly, with precision. A good book captures our attention, refocuses our eyes on small, beautiful things, and grows empathy. Through a book, a reader sees through the eyes of someone else, and this is healing, demystifying work necessary for reconnecting us in these fractured and tumultuous times. This is also work I see as urgent as a member of the autistic community. If there can be better understanding of our process, belief in our potential, maybe future generations of autistic people won't have to struggle through their education as I have. I know, through pursuing a career in the art of words, I will bring something important to the world. I hope, through supporting other writers, I might help hone the voices of people whose experience is utterly different than mine, empowering them to write with mastery and integrity. And I believe, through growing as a writer myself, I will be a strong advocate for people like me, and continue buoying readers with kindness, warmth, and imagination.

I love learning. This has been true as long as I can remember. Before I turned three, I taught myself to read. I read anything I could get my hands on, from cereal boxes to VCR manuals. I absorbed all the information I could—about animals, swords, explorers. I was an odd kid, certainly. But I was sharp, and motivated to explore the world. I began writing, and quickly that's what I wanted to do with my life. When I began public school, everything shifted. I was bored or I was out of my depth. Our self-paced reading program was the only thing that kept me afloat in a system that became increasingly perplexing. By high school, my GPA had dropped. Then, after years of struggling in college, I dropped out just one class shy of my associate's degree. This did not stop me learning. My longing to understand what I can of the world has never tired, and I've accomplished a lot as a published poet and small business owner. Still, I have always felt untapped potential hidden somewhere in me. This year, at 33-years-old, I was diagnosed with autism. I understand now the reason I struggled so much in school. The system was not built for brains like mine, whose environmental sensitivity causes constant overwhelm, whose social difficulties become distracting. Teachers dismissed me as lazy, aloof, because my perceived intelligence didn't match my success. I believed this for a long time. Recognizing I am autistic made me feel less like a failure. Actually, it made me feel proud that I got so far without support or necessary self-understanding. Seeing myself in this new light sparked a desire to try again. I'm returning to school with the long-term plan of getting my MFA. I intend to continue pursuing a career in writing. I currently work as a poet, and would love to expand creatively into authorship. Beyond that, though, I want to work as an editor or an educator. I have a clear mind when it comes to language and storytelling, and would offer valuable insights to other writers. I would do so kindly, with precision. A good book captures our attention, refocuses our eyes on small, beautiful things, and facilitates deeper empathy for those around us. Through a book, a reader can see through the eyes of someone else, and this is healing and demystifying work necessary for helping us find our way back to one another in these fractured and tumultuous times. This is also work I see as urgent as a member of the autistic community. If there can be greater understanding of our process, greater belief in our potential, maybe future generations of autistic people won't have to struggle through their education as I have. I know, through pursuing a career in the art of words, I will indeed make a difference in the world. I wouldn't care to do it if I didn't believe that was the case. I hope, through supporting other writers, I might help hone the voices of people whose experience is utterly different than mine, empowering them to write with mastery and integrity. And I believe, through growing as a writer myself, I will be a strong advocate for people like me, and continue buoying readers with kindness, warmth, and imagination.

Over the last eight years, I've been single-minded in pursuing a career in writing. When I was 25, I began a small business writing poetry, first just selling art prints of poems I wrote simply for the sake of writing them, and then writing custom poems for people all over the world. I've written custom poems for engaged couples and television executives, in celebration and in mourning, to offer strength and provide tenderness. My poetry, according to the people I've written for, has made way for deeper connection and conversation, and has buoyed people's spirits in deep, dark waters. I'm so thankful for the opportunities I've had, both to make the world a softer place through my art, and to make a living doing what I love. I hope to keep doing this work for a long time, but I'm also ready to expand. Very little thrills me like learning does. I know that sounds like such a "scholarshippy" cliché, but in this case, it's really true. My love of knowledge and understanding, of intellectual and creative growth, is indefatigable. I feel like I've grown all the way to the edges of the work I'm doing now, and I want to do more. For me, learning feels like standing in a room full of doors. Every new piece of information is a key. As I unlock doors, I'm not only unlocking new rooms, but hallways stretching infinitely into the distance - hallways lines with doors themselves, all worlds of understanding to be unlocked through curiosity. All this said, I'm returning to school now with the long-term plan of getting my MFA. I intend to continue pursuing this career in the art form I love so much, and I'd love to do so with more skill and more knowledge. I'm actively working on two book proposals and a children's book at the moment, and would love to expand creatively into longer-form projects like these. Beyond that, though, I think I'd really like to work as an editor or an educator. I have a clear mind when it comes to words, to pace, to storytelling, and I know I would offer valuable insights to other writers. I also would do so kindly, with gentleness and precision. I know writing isn't what generally comes first to mind when people imagine work that has a positive impact on the world. But I believe the stories we tell about the past are the ones that will inform our future. I think of the work of Audre Lorde, Brené Brown, bell hooks, Mary Oliver, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Katherine May. Look how they've changed how we think of ourselves, of one another, of our place in the world and of the world itself. A good book captures our attention, refocuses our eyes on small, beautiful things, and facilitates deeper empathy for those around us. Through a book, a reader can see through the eyes of someone else, and this is healing and demystifying work necessary for helping us find our way back to one another in these fractured and tumultuous times. I know, through pursuing a career in the art of words, I will indeed make a difference in the world. I wouldn't care to do it if I didn't believe that was the case. I hope, through supporting other writers, I might help hone the voices of people whose experience is utterly different than mine, empowering them to write with mastery and integrity. And I believe, through growing as a writer myself, I will continue buoying readers with kindness, warmth, and imagination.

For my work, I write custom poetry for people who struggle on their own to find words for their inner truths. I've written poems from parents to their children, from children to their parents, from lover to lover, from mourner to mourned. Every one of these poems is delivered to the recipient handwritten. There is something human about the scrawl of a hand on paper. It evokes closeness, a remembering that there is a life tucked just behind these words. They're not easily edited or perfected. It's vulnerable, visibly so. This is why I handwrite the poems I compose for my clients. And it's why, when my son was born shortly after the passing of my grandmother, one of the things that I grieved was he will see his name written in her handwriting. My grandma was a devout letter-writer, with a roll of stamps on her table, boxes of stationary, and an assortment of colored pens. She wrote on her cards in such an odd layout, with arrows pointing every which way. I memorized the pattern: the right side of the card, then the left, then the back. Rarely did she leave any space unfilled. Her letters were cheeky, warm, ridiculous. She poked fun at herself, at her loved ones. She made me smile. There was something special in going to the mailbox and seeing her handwriting there. I would know it was from her by only a glance. Many years ago, I saw a little ceramic monster who doubled as a piggy bank and thought immediately of grandma - he was silly, strange, and very cute, just like her. I bought him on the spot for her. I said, "Grandma, put notes in here for me that I can read one day when you're gone." I didn't realize she really would. She passed away in July of 2020, and in August, my mom brought me the ceramic monster she'd recovered from her house. When she passed it to me, I heard a bit of a rattle. Greedily, I removed the rubber stopped and shook the monster to see what was waiting inside. It was notes. So many little handwritten notes. "Torri - 'Left to our own devices, we would be bathing once a year, and eating our neighbor's pets.' (unknown). I was cleaning out and found this quote hastily written in the very back cover of my study book... I think I can hear you laugh already. - g'ma" "I'm thinking of when you bro't Trixie to the Lutheran home and how she cheered my stay there. Thank you!" "Torri... Always remember... 'A broken wing doesn't mean you can't fly!' WOW! I would think a broken wing WOULD mean you couldn't fly - But... I know you understand the hidden message in statements like that - 'cause you think like that! Love you! - Granny" "Torri, my Torri... I'm missing you today. I have my kitchen window open... Spring time in IL. A gentle breeze is flirting with the warmth from the AGA stove... Once again I can vision the shadow of you... Leaning into that warmth... One of my favorite memories of you... still here with me, tho' miles away. Yes... that red stove provides more than comfort... it feeds the heart - my heart. I love you! - g'ma" Seeing these words in her handwriting was like holding her hand again - and reading them again now feels the same. It's one of the best gifts I've ever received, and it continues to bless me with warmth and connection... "Still here with me, tho' miles away."

All change, if you ask me, begins locally. As a poet, my work is to look closer, and then closer still—so local that I don't even have to leave my garden to see a world. And while I do volunteer in my community as a member of our mayor's "Next Generation Advisory Board," as a member of my synagogue, and a participant in city clean-ups and tree-planting initiatives, I believe this work of looking closely and curiously is the most important thing I do. Writing about it is the second most important. The quarrel of house sparrows that's settled in the overgrown shrubs next door comes daily to our yard to feed. I often put out seed for them, but when I don't, they still appear to pick ticks from the bushes, ants from the grass. It would be easy to forget to notice them, with their drab coloring and ordinariness. But curiosity compels me to know them. I've learned they are the most abundant bird species on the planet, numbering about 1.6 billion. This is because they are a resilient, tenacious bird that have learned to adapt to human interference in the world. About our responsibility to care for the planet, this teaches me two things. First, that living things, more than anything, simply wish to go on living. Second, that our steamrolling of the natural world has made visitation from cardinals, goldfinches, bluebirds, and chickadees such a scarcer gift. Both lessons are a vision of humanity's impact on our planet, and an exhortation to make change, to do better. To see the fortitude of these little brown birds should inspire us to awe, to respect for their cleverness and audacity. And it should inspire us to empathize. After all, they are doing what they can to survive. But the ratio of house sparrows to other wild birds should pain us—we are making this world uninhabitable for all but the most pertinacious species. What does this mean for the way I live? It means everything. I so wish for my home to be a respite in this bustling city for the living things that have been displaced—from the house sparrows and robins to the bumblebees and earthworms. We put out food for the wild birds. When the house sparrows crowded our feeder, we put up another especially made for finches. We provided birdbaths for drink and play. We planted a serviceberry tree that will offer up berries and shelter. When the squirrels discovered our birdseed, we put up a feeder just for them to keep the competition low. We planted trees—maple, redbud, tulip poplar—to give sanctuary from the neighborhood cats. We planted flowers—coreopsis, black-eyed susans, daylilies—to sustain the bumblebees and leafcutter bees that have made their home in the cracks in our brickwork. We placed bee houses in our garden and will tend to their well-being when bees overwinter there. We let our grass get a little unruly, but we trim back the bindweed like it's a religion. This is how we take responsibility for the planet in our own backyard. It begins by noticing, by wondering, by caring. It grows, literally, from there. With the growth of that care in my immediate surroundings comes a greater love for the world around me—locally, in my neighborhood, my city, my state, our country, our planet. Like learning to love someone you once judged or ignored by getting to know them, learning to love the planet begins at home. Once you see the magnificence and creativity of the natural world around you, it becomes impossible to unsee it. Once struck by awe, you cannot be unstruck. I want to see more people love this world too—to notice it in all its beauty and strength, and in its suffering and fragility too—so I write poems to share my awe, my noticing. I write about the gifts that are given back to me as I give what I can to the earth. I hope that each act of simple kindness, each lyric and verse, might be like a mother tree among aspens—an élan vital from which a sprawling forest springs forth.

Meanwhile, I go - t.r.h. blue I moved to a home in the city, so I planted some trees, so I look to them often to stay rooted. This is what I know is true, that a beautiful walk in the city is still a beautiful walk; a beautiful home, still a beautiful home, only you have to work a bit harder to get your favorite birds to come, to love the ones already here. To love them it helps to know their names. The song sparrow is plain, poorly dressed, but oh can she sing. And it won’t be soon our young red maple can host their songs herself, but it will be. I am okay waiting because I must. Meanwhile, I go to the bakery, I go to the market, I watch my son touch flowers where he finds them, growing too from side yards, from window boxes, from bee gardens, from every little give in the old concrete.

As a queer, autistic Jew, and as a pastor's daughter who was raised in the church, I have been subject to my fair share of gatekeeping. When I was a child struggling with my schooling, it was said I wasn't applied enough. When I was a teenager asking hard questions about the divine, it was said I wasn't faithful enough. When I came out, I wasn't Christian enough. When I converted, I wasn't Jewish enough. When I eschewed labels that weren't working for me, I wasn't queer enough. Because I am married, a mother, relatively learned (by trial and error) in social convention, I wasn't autistic enough. I have come to many doors as open as I can be, only to find them held shut by those who got there first. I am committed in my own life to seeing this change. It is not enough for us to leave harmful ideas behind. We have to dismantle the systems that allowed those ideas to thrive. Leaving behind homophobic, hateful theology is a good thing - but it is even better to leave with it the demands we place on other people that allowed us to once think of that theology as "love." We can't persist in demanding performance, demanding agreement, demanding conformity, and then say we've freed ourselves from the harmful places we came from. Simply changing our minds about big ideas, but doing nothing to build a new framework for those ideas, is often more like putting pretty wallpaper up in a prison cell than it is breaking down the doors. As someone who has, even at my most embraced, felt inexplicably "outside," I am an outspoken proponent of wider entries, longer tables, more chairs. Of gates that are held open, not just for people to come in, but also for people to leave as they please. We are changing constantly, growing like a garden through the seasons. Each of us deserves the freedom to be planted in the environment that is right for the time we are in, and for the kind of growth to which we endeavor, without losing love, support, or connection. I am a mother now, and I worry. What else can I do? I think of my son, his curiosity and cleverness, the oddity of his humor and fascination, his gentle spirit as he leans in to kiss the faces of flowers. I know he can't hold onto all of this forever, but I am committed to the place we live - to helping make it a place that will embrace him as he is, in the many forms he will take. And I am committed to helping him become the kind of person who tends to a world like that too.