I was born to two actors from North Carolina and Kansas who lost their accents and escaped to New York City.  Along with the world’s greatest sheltie, Skippy, we lived in a small apartment in Greenwich Village, a stone throw away from Washington Square Park. From my second floor window, I was able to hear, see, and imagine the multitudes of people on the streets and their stories. This, and books, created within me a great desire to experience the larger world.

I attended an overcrowded but diverse and creative public school through 5th grade followed by The United Nations International School -- then a genuine utopia of diversity.  Twenty-plus years later, many of those people are still good friends. While there, I met a certain Aisha S, and with the help of her father traveled in Europe, Jamaica, Mexico, and Pakistan -- all by the age of seventeen.

And as soon as I was able, I loved walking throughout the city and exploring its intertwining beauty and tragedy. I experienced the old-school night clubs including the last breaths of Studio 54, where we would dance as if the world would end. (Alas, this is not to suggest that I danced well...) And while I survived, some did not. A mohawked bartender fell down the elevator shaft.  I saw her and poof, she was gone.

After UNIS, I attended Bard College on the Hudson, where I majored in Creative Writing and minored in Film. Afterwards, I quickly learned that working as a production assistant wasn’t for me and on a whim moved to Philly. It was there that I earned my first Masters, in English Education at Temple University, and obtained my first significant faculty job at The Art Institute of PA. I also met a man that I would later marry, David Moughalian.

Still young, I needed more adventure.  I had just read Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, and loved the desert paintings of Georgia O’Keefe.  While watching a re-run of Thelma and Louise driving into the rich eternity of the Grand Canyon, I knew I had to get to the red/pink deserts of the Southwest.  Not being independently wealthy, the most efficient approach was to return to school on a scholarship at New Mexico State. There I studied post-colonial theory and contemporary American literature, and crossed some borders (and took out more student loans) to spend a summer in Guatemala.  A couple years later I pursued my doctorate in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at The University of Arizona. My dissertation was called Border Pedagogy for Democratic Practice.  However, my most meaningful experience at U of A was attending the American Indian Language Development Institute.

After years apart, Dave and I reconnected and married, eventually moving to Santa Monica, California.  I worked at Antioch and Santa Monica Community College, but eventually joined Dave full-time at The Art Institute of California – Los Angeles. This was a golden time where I taught all my dream classes and traveled to The Middle East, Mexico, and Vietnam. I worked with the activist group Office of the Americas, and learned to make Armenian style ceramics. We lived in a loft-like townhouse, made great friends, acquired two dogs, and most importantly, we became the proud parents to Theodore Bolt Moughalian!

Yet I still felt a magnetic pull to New York.  We eventually relocated to Washington Heights in Northern Manhattan and I am currently an Assistant Professor at Bronx Community College.  It's great to see my family and oldest friends after so many years away. I have delightful colleagues, write, watch my gorgeous son grow -- and still try to concoct schemes to travel.  Although I never tire of walking the city streets and taking advantage of its arts, the world will never again be as small to me as Manhattan. And in fifty-plus years, I want my ashes scattered in the New Mexican desert along with a little recitation of my favorite Walt Whitman quote: "I bequeath myself to the earth I love.  If you want me again, look for me under your boot soles." 

Whitman, my teacher and muse, wrote Leaves of Grass, my version of the bible.  And if you click here, I can tell you about my other favorite books and films.

Today, current projects include turning my dissertation chapters into articles for journals, developing a poetry chapbook, proposing a book on the teaching of literature, and working on several committees at BCC. The most fun of which is serving as a faculty advisor to a poetry club and literary magazine, along with colleague and poet Professor Sandra Tarlin.

Like many, I am very concerned about the environment these days. I want my son, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, to enjoy clean water and air and explore the spectacular diversity of life and environments on this planet.  Since the issues that most concern me include a sustainable environment and social justice, I am a member of Green Party.

As Horace, Frost, and later Robin Williams said, “Carpe Diem.” Time is speeding away from us, so it is the here and now that matters. To seize the day upon “the rooftops of the world” then “your very flesh shall be a great poem.” – WW.

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