Polly has been a non-fiction writer for some time now; Rootstock Publishing will be bringing out her first book, a memoir, in June, so she’s getting used to the idea of calling herself “Author.” At the same time, she works as a School-to-Career counselor at a high school, where she enjoys supporting teens who are building self-reliance and exploring what the world has to offer.

She earned a Master’s degree over five summers spent at Bread Loaf School of English. Since then she has attended workshops at the Madeline Island School of the Arts, the New York State Writers Institute, Wesleyan University Writers Conference, and the Iowa Writers Festival. She launched a blog, “The Panorama of a Pastor’s Wife” back in 2011. Starting to draft the memoir, she completed Grub Street’s Memoir Incubator Program in 2018. Her work has appeared in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Sunday Magazine of The Boston Globe, Tikkun, The Concord Monitor, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and on National Public Radio. Last fall, an excerpt of her memoir was nominated by Unleash Press for a Pushcart Prize. She has essays included in two volumes of the Fast Women anthologies, both edited by Gina Barreca and published by Woodhall Press.

Polly’s interests include exploring how moments of almost perfect harmony — when two elements merge seamlessly — and moments of clear demarcation — when borderlines show up vividly — can co-exist in daily life: how the secular and the religious worlds are constantly interacting; how individuals (particularly teenagers) try to find their own distinct paths while also, to varying extents, meshing with and contributing to their own communities.