Essays & Podcasts
This page brings together essays and conversations that explore what it looks like to make decisions under pressure—survival, self-permission, grief, and rebuilding a life that fits.
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Across these pieces, I return to the same questions: how you know when something is no longer working, what it takes to leave, and how you begin again from there.
Essay Publications & Interviews
These essays and interviews appear in national and literary publications and explore the decisions people make under pressure—safety, autonomy, grief, and survival.
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I write at the intersection of lived experience and public consequence, with an emphasis on clarity, safety, and refusing simplified narratives about harm, responsibility, and resilience.
Feb 4, 2026
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A lethality assessment after I left my abuser scored my partner an 8 out of 10 for risk of future violence. If I had chosen to continue our pregnancy five years earlier, it would have been a 10.
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In this essay, I write about the role access to abortion played in my survival—and the quiet, often invisible calculations people make when deciding whether to stay, leave, or endure. This piece examines reproductive autonomy not as politics, but as a matter of safety, timing, and the ability to stay alive.
April 8, 2026
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In this interview with Sanctuary, I speak about the relationship between poetry, trauma, and healing, and why memoir-in-verse became the only form capable of holding the fragmented nature of traumatic memory. We discuss domestic abuse, complex PTSD, the emotional realities of leaving, and the quiet ways survival reshapes the body long after danger has passed.
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This piece explores the idea that freedom does not have to look polished to be real, and that sometimes the most radical act of self-trust is allowing yourself to choose a different life before you can fully see what waits on the other side.
April 12, 2026
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In this interview with CanvasRebel, I share the story of a moment that changed the trajectory of my work: choosing to ask for an opportunity before I felt ready. What followed shaped my publishing path, but more importantly, it reframed how I think about risk, visibility, and timing.
This piece explores the internal calculus behind high-stakes decisions, and the often uncomfortable reality that the moments that matter most rarely come with certainty.
April 15, 2026
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In this feature on Conjuring the Hurricane, I speak about the impossible choices that often accompany survival, and the complicated emotional realities of leaving an abusive relationship. We discuss reclaiming goodness on my own terms, learning to trust my body again, and the tension between being seen as both victim and villain within other people’s narratives.
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This piece explores the idea that survival rarely arrives in clean or perfect forms, and that sometimes the first act of self-trust is allowing yourself to leave a life that no longer feels survivable.
April 26, 2026
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When I first tried to write about surviving domestic abuse in traditional prose, I found myself trapped inside questions of chronology and certainty. The images remained vivid. The timeline did not.
In this essay, I write about why memoir-in-verse became the only form capable of holding the fragmented nature of traumatic memory. This piece explores complex PTSD, emotional truth, and the unexpected freedom poetry offered in reclaiming my own story.
April 26, 2026
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In this interview with Women Writers, Women’s Books, I speak about the complicated realities of survival, the moral gray areas that often accompany escape, and the ways trauma reshapes identity, memory, and self-trust. We discuss why I resisted flattening my story into simple categories of victim and villain, and why memoir-in-verse felt truer to the fragmented nature of traumatic memory.
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This piece explores the quiet work of reclaiming authority over your own life: learning to trust your inner knowing, releasing the need for universal approval, and recognizing that imperfect choices can still lead to freedom.
May 2, 2026
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In this interview with Maple Grove Magazine, I speak about the nonlinear reality of surviving and leaving domestic abuse, and the long process of rebuilding a life after rupture. We discuss trauma, memory, creative process, and the emotional calculus that often keeps people in situations that are harming them.
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This piece explores the quiet disorientation of realizing your life has become organized around someone else’s volatility, and the moment the question shifts from “How do I make this work?” to “What is this costing me to stay?”
May 19, 2026
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In this interview with MUTHA Magazine, I speak about the complicated realities of survival, the fragmented nature of traumatic memory, and the long process of rebuilding a life after abuse. We discuss memoir-in-verse, inherited family patterns, coercive control, imperfect survival choices, and the emotional work of reclaiming joy, friendship, and self-trust after years spent in fear.
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This conversation explores the tension between survival and judgment, and the radical possibility that freedom does not require perfection in order to be worthy of compassion.
Podcast Appearances
These conversations explore what it looks like to make decisions under pressure—leaving, grief, identity, and starting over.
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In these interviews, I speak from inside those moments: how you know when something is no longer working, what it takes to leave anyway, and how you begin again when the life you had no longer fits.
May 12, 2026
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In this conversation, I speak about grief, friendship, and the experience of losing multiple people I loved within a short period of time. We discuss what it meant to walk alongside one of my closest friends at the end of her life, and how those losses reshaped both my understanding of love and my relationship to community.
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This episode explores the ways grief can deepen connection as much as it fractures us, and the strange, deeply human reality that humor, tenderness, and acceptance often coexist alongside profound loss.
Apr 23, 2026
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In this conversation, I speak about leaving an unsafe relationship, rebuilding a life after trauma, and the long process of learning to trust myself again. We discuss the role creative expression played in my healing, as well as the complicated realities of survival, resilience, and starting over.
This episode explores what it means to reclaim a sense of self after rupture, and how hope often returns slowly, quietly, and long before we fully recognize it.
Apr 21, 2026 | Episode 328
Love-Bombed, Isolated, and Reclaiming Power
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In Part 2 of this conversation on When Dating Hurts, I speak about what happened after I left: the emotional fallout of survival, the process of rebuilding a sense of self, and the difficult work of untangling trauma from identity. We discuss inherited family patterns, post-separation abuse, complex PTSD, and the challenge of learning to trust my own perception again after years of manipulation and fear.
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This episode explores the long arc of recovery after coercive control, and the quiet, often nonlinear process of reclaiming a life that finally feels like your own.
Apr 21, 2026 | Episode 327
Love-Bombed, Isolated, and Reclaiming Power
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In this two-part conversation on When Dating Hurts, I speak about the subtle escalation of emotional abuse, the early warning signs I ignored, and the long process of recognizing control disguised as love. We discuss coercive dynamics, trauma, family patterns, post-separation abuse, and the complicated emotional realities survivors often navigate while trying to leave.
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This episode explores how abuse reshapes a person’s sense of self over time, and what it can look like to slowly reclaim agency, trust, and the possibility of a different life on the other side.
Mar 24, 2026 | Episode 414
​Grief doesn’t end—it changes shape, and sometimes it still lets you laugh.
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“I Still Share Cosmic Jokes With My Dead Best Friend”
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In this conversation, I talk about what it means to live with grief that doesn’t resolve—and why I no longer see it as something to “get over.” We explore how grief evolves, how connection continues after loss, and the unexpected ways it can remain a source of meaning, humor, and relationship.
Feb 9, 2026 | Episode 177
What it actually takes to leave—and who you have to become after.
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In this conversation, I speak about leaving an abusive relationship and the long process of rebuilding identity afterward. We explore how lived experience becomes a framework for helping others navigate trauma, recovery, and self-preservation.
Feb 2, 2026 | Episode 176
​What it means to stay human when everything around you starts to break.
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In this episode, I speak about witnessing community-level disruption in Minneapolis and what it means to hold onto humanity and connection in moments of collective instability. The conversation moves between chaos and care—how both can exist at the same time.
Dec 15, 2025 | Episode 28
It turns out your younger self doesn’t go away—she just waits for you to listen.
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In this conversation, we talk about poetry, friendship, and the early experiences that shape how we learn to trust ourselves. I share work from my younger years and reflect on how those early voices still echo in the writing I do now.
Oct 12, 2025 | Episode 21
Leaving a life that worked on paper to build one that actually fit.
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In this episode, I talk about leaving a long corporate career to write—and what it meant to choose a life that felt uncertain but necessary. We explore grief, reinvention, and the role of truth-telling in building something new.
October 7, 2025 | Episode 1
The moment everything shifted—and what it took to rebuild from there.
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In this conversation, I share the moment that disrupted the trajectory of my life and work, and how I began rebuilding from there. We talk about clarity, courage, and the small decisions that ultimately shape transformation.