I joined Georgetown as a faculty member in the English Department in 1997, teaching 18th-century literature and publishing books that were in the media. There was a huge demand for publishing advice, so in 2006 I created the Office of Scholarly Publications and became its founding director, working for the Provost. Over 4/5 of Georgetown’s tenure-line faculty have come here for conversation about publication, and I've also consulted worldwide (see the Campuses tab).
     My faculty authors learn to identify the spirit inside themselves that brought them to academia in the first place. By understanding who they are and what their contributions are worth, they leave my courses with a fresh perspective: that they and their ideas are precious and irreplaceable, and when framed properly, they are absolute gold to editors. In my seminars, scholars learn to see their work as part of a larger story: one that can only thrive with their input offered with assurance, clarity, and appreciation of a well-shared conversation.

     As an adult returning college student who is first-gen, my struggles and eventual academic success now form the most popular aspects of my seminars. I have a heart for anyone who feels like a late-blooming rose! Because of early hard knocks and a just-folks backstory, I relate to people facing all sorts of challenges including emerging scholars from under-served communities, two-city academic couples, parents of children with special needs, and scholars living with disability.

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     I founded Academic Authors, which I run on my own time with Georgetown's enthusiastic encouragement, as a 501c3 nonprofit to lead faculty members and other research scholars to publication at other campuses. Through a comfortingly clear process, I inspire scholars to move out of supplicant mode, and transition naturally into attitudes of peaceful strength and confidence. The result is a re-imagining of the faculty-publisher relationship that benefits everyone and results in more peer-reviewed journal articles and university press books accepted at the very highest level.
     Faculty learn how essential their unique perspectives -- including gender, race, socio-economics, regionality, nationality, religion, and much more -- are in the publishing world. They learn to slip by obstacles as they discover their true intellectual communities, ones usually hiding just beyond that last un-knocked-upon door.