Even though he had a lifelong speech impediment, my dad was an epic storyteller. Without a high school education, he had a knack for pulling in his audience with a strong hook, building his plot with suspense before driving home the final punch with a wink and sparkle in his eye. Raised without TV, Dad’s stories sustained me and when I was in college, the first story that I published was the one about tuberculosis, bed bugs, and Aunt Essi.

I have always been drawn to people with fascinating stories. In the oppressive Midwestern fundamentalist church I was raised in, I found refuge in Kaisa, a fellow outcast whose European fashion choices far outmatched my backwoods farming community. When I applied for my first personal training job, Katrina, a real-life ballerina, hired me on the spot and taught me the ropes while we bonded over dating issues in NYC. Kinga, a muscular trainer, pulled me aside at the gym between sets to tell childhood stories of harsh Polish winters and striving as an undocumented New Yorker in the early 2000’s.

I was an early adopter to podcasting. When Serial came out in 2014, I had already been dreaming about the countless ways to use the medium. I started interviewing my fitness clients as a way to get my feet wet. I published these conversations on my Skoogfit website. In grad school, I traveled the country collecting dozens of oral histories from women who left our childhood religion. I also co-founded Ink Slingers, a podcast about life writing and the people who do it. I interviewed more than 40 memoirists, biographers, and essayists about their life and work. I also co-founded and edited Liv Literary Journal. Today, I am the producer at BIO Podcast.

I am interested in life stories that shift the foundations of what it means to exist in our society and push against its boundaries.