I write and live in Frederick, Maryland. My published articles and essays chronicle everything from the Scottish subculture of boy racers, to a Jewish community’s struggle to maintain roots in a northern Louisiana city, to Frankie Jean Lewis Terrell’s need to preserve her famous brother’s legacy. In 2009, my poem “Exodus 20:8″ was a runner up in the Charlotte Newberger Prize for Poetry, sponsored by Lilith Magazine and judged by Alicia Ostriker.

My journalism has appeared in numerous newspapers and wire services in the United States and abroad, including The San Antonio Express-News, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scripps Howard News Service, Gannett Louisiana News Service and www.sunspot.net, the Web site of The Baltimore Sun. Four of my travel essays appeared in the book Looking for Lockerbie (Syracuse University Press 2008).

I published some of this work before marrying my husband, Carl, in 2007, which should explain the byline of Magin McKenna. (I took my mother’s name and my husband’s name when I married.)

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