Age: 28
After Touchstone?
After Touchstone, my family moved to Sudbury, where I attended Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. I earned my B.A. at the University of Rochester (after spending my freshman year at Sarah Lawrence College). After taking several years off, I am now earning my Master’s at Emerson College.
Current endeavors (professional, hobbies, family life):
All my friends joke that I’m trying to take over the world, one medium at a time. I published two novels right out of college, and since then I’ve been a freelance writer, mostly for The Boston Phoenix and Stuff@night magazine. I also write for the Boston Globe’s new magazine Lola, and for NewAsianCuisine.com. I am currently the Head Writer at ImprovBoston (a comedy theater that is ironically NOT in Boston, but in Cambridge), and I am a part-time on-air monkey at WFNX, where I make terrible jokes for a live radio audience.
When I’m not working, I spend a lot of time hiking, rock climbing, and running (I completed my first marathon in 2007!), most of that with my amazing dog, Murphy. He’s not much of a rock climber, but maybe someday. I love to cook, and I’m a huge travel nerd.
Favorite Touchstone memory:
This is a tough question, because I have a LOT of wonderful memories from Touchstone: building an igloo out of cereal boxes as part of my class’ study of Inuit culture; building forts out in the woods behind the old school building in Upton; the year that I dressed as Betsy Ross for Halloween and nobody “got it” except my Touchstone classmates; appearing in my very first play, as the “magic wand lender” in an original musical that a bunch of my peers wrote based on a Shel Silverstein poem. These are just a few of many “favorites”.
How did Touchstone prepare you for what you do today?
My education and social experiences at Touchstone were such that my creativity and individuality were embraced and nurtured. Touchstone taught me to be an innovative thinker and doer. As a writer, my job changes from day to day, requiring that I think outside the proverbial box, and that I do it quickly. As a free-spirited, iconoclastic kid, I was encouraged by my teachers to explore my interests and ideas from as many angles as possible, and that there was no such thing as “failure,” just obstacles that could be overcome with patience and tenacity. I look forward to someday sending my own children to Touchstone, so that they, too, can benefit from the school’s mission.