Teacher. Christie is in her tenth year as an educator. She teaches senior English, AP English Literature, and the creative writing elective at an all-girls school, as well as a summer camp creative writing course for girls in the 5th-8th grade. She is a Google Certified Educator, Level 2.
Writer. Christie is earning an MFA in children's and young adult fiction writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts (graduating 2022). She writes YA non-fiction, fantasy, and magical realism about strange people, beautiful dreams, delicious food, and magic. In keeping with her focus on food and magic, she is currently working on a YA novel called Salt and a children's picture book called Sugar. She's also hard at work on her second non-fiction YA book Stress: Tips and Insights for Teenagers (forthcoming from Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).
Depression: Tips and Insights for Teenagers is her first book, published October 2020. Her book addresses depression in teenagers, offering relatable, accessible situations and strategies to guide teens struggling with mental health—including identifying signs of struggle, recognizing stress factors, de-stigmatizing shame, implementing strategies for self-care (both in immediate crisis and long-term coping skills), and finding resources for help.
Scholar. Christie earned her PhD in English literature at Louisiana State University in 2019. She received a dissertation-year fellowship from the LSU Graduate School for her dissertation project titled Inside Voice: Charlotte Smith, (In)Sensibility, and Emotional Cadences in Lyric Silence. Christie holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature with a special concentration in creative writing and minor in anthropology and a master’s degree in English literature from the University of New Orleans.
Her scholarly work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including Essays in Romanticism. She has presented at conferences across the country. She studied abroad several times, taking graduate courses in creative writing (fiction and non-fiction), British and French literature, book history, print culture, and French language in France and Canada. Her research interests include Romantic and Victorian literature, the lyric, social and physical histories of affect, and the multi-faceted role of silence in expressing emotional and sensory excess. Her scholarly curriculum vitae can be found here.
Dreamer. She enjoys spending time with her lovely kitties Lord Tennyson & Mister Browning (aka Teeny & Mister). Besides reading and writing beautiful dreamy fictions, her interests include digital painting, traveling the world taking pictures and eating delicious cheeses, researching the digital history of video games, and learning new things every day. Her biggest unfulfilled dream is to write a video game.
