I used to be an academic. You’d think I still was, to judge from my bookshelves. I studied English at Saint Martin’s University, then Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, because I loved stories as much as I loved teaching. Eventually, I left academia with a heavy heart but a clear head, and found my way to a different kind of storytelling.

Since 2008, I’ve worked in media production and creative direction, and now serve as COO and Creative Director at ImageArts Productions, the Pacific Northwest’s largest real estate media company. Along the way, I founded Theorie Creative, a quieter space for photography, design, and visual storytelling: projects rooted in the art of noticing.

Still, forever a recovering lit major, I still find excuses to write. Most recently, I co-authored “Images Reimagined: Modernism, Photography, and the Short Story” with my brilliant husband, Jeff Birkenstein.

Together with our daughter, we live with our sweet old puppy, Zoe, a family of raccoons, and two opinionated barred owls, tucked away in a forest in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Our daughter's birth flower is the logo of Theorie Creative.