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When people talk about “clear communication,” they usually mean efficiency. We imagine clarity as speed, brevity, or the ability to deliver information without friction as if it were simply the shortest route from one point to another. But clarity, in its most meaningful form, is something deeper and far more human. Clarity is empathy made visible. It’s the willingness to meet someone where they are, to orient them gently, to make sure your words don’t just reach them but als

If you haven’t yet encountered Kathryn Harlan’s short-story collection, you absolutely need to order Fruiting Bodies  for the next cozy, rainy weekend on your calendar. I stumbled onto this beautiful book about halfway through a long drive from Southern to Northern California. I was in the part of the trip where you can’t beat to listen to another song, but the silence stretches out like the long, flat road ahead. If you’ve made that drive, you know the feeling. Since I was b

Ding. Ding. Going Up. As an educator that often works with first-year students in a college or university setting, I have tried a lot of party tricks to get the conversation going on the first day of class. Breaking that ice is so important for having a term where students feel comfortable, connected, and engaged.  I’ll be talking about my favorite activity that relies of shared experiences in another post, but today I wanted to advocate for the use of an elevator pitch in t

For years, my work has centered on how people move through space—how they make meaning as they travel, cross cultural borders, and find their place in the world. In my research, this meant tracing literary figures across maps and centuries to understand how stories create belonging when geography itself feels unstable.  What I didn’t expect was that this fascination with movement and orientation would eventually guide my own path away from academia and toward a new profession