About

        I was born with dirt under my nails and stories in my bones. Raised in the folds of the Appalachian hills, I carry with me the old ways—where everything has a use, and everything has a spirit. I’ve spent nearly twenty years as a tattoo artist, etching memory into skin with needle and ink. But it’s oil paint that pulls at me deepest—thick and slow, like honey poured in winter. I paint, I sketch, I cut glass and solder it back into something that hums with meaning. I make jewelry from broken heirlooms—fragments of china, old buttons, bits of lace and brass—giving forgotten things a second breath. One day soon, I’ll shape clay with the same hands that once held grief and grew gardens. Art isn’t just what I do. It’s how I stay alive.

     

       Before I was ever any kind of artist, I was a writer. Words are my oldest friend—the first light I reached for in the dark. Writing was the dream I tucked into my pillow every night, even when the world tried to shake it from me. I write to understand, to remember, to heal. I believe there is power in a woman who tells the truth of her life without blinking. I am that woman now.

       

         My debut novel, The Secrets Raspberries Keep, is a coming-of-age story soaked in memory, grief, and Southern dirt. It’s about trauma, silence, and the things that grow in broken places. At its heart, it’s a love letter to girlhood, Appalachia, and the slow, stubborn work of healing. I was inspired to write it by my Mamaw, and by the generations of women like her who endured more than they were ever allowed to say out loud. If you’ve ever carried more than your share, buried things to keep peace, or come back home with trembling hands—you may find yourself in these pages.

 

         I live slow and steady now, on a patch of land I tend with my own hands. I’m a homesteader. I believe in herbal medicine and the old remedies passed down by those who knew their way around both prayer and poultices. I homeschool my children under wide sky and crooked pine. I find God in creekbeds, in canning jars, in the quiet strength of my garden. The river is where I go when I need to remember who I am. Above all, I am a follower of Jesus Christ—my faith shapes every part of me, steady as the mountain beneath my feet.

 

        I have suffered. I have survived. I have stitched myself back together with thread I dyed myself. This space—Milkglass and Memory—is where I gather it all. The art. The writing. The ghosts. The grit. It’s part journal, part altar, part front porch. Welcome. I’m glad you found your way here.