About

Although I happily write about any subject (after all, learning is one of the joys of life), my specialties are health (particularly mental health, diseases, chronic conditions, and medications), security, history, agriculture, and parenting (my four kids have provided plenty of fodder).

I cut my teeth in the world of agriculture by writing for The Farm Forum, the leading agricultural publication in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Soon, I found myself carving a niche in this area, writing for publications such as Massey Ferguson Today, AGCO Advantage, Biomass Magazine, Farm Journal, Farm Industry News, and Feed Lot Magazine.

I published my first big health and parenting piece in Parenting Magazine, which was subsequently placed on CNN. Since then, I’ve spent the majority of my time writing and editing for hospitals and health websites such as the American Cancer Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Cleveland Clinic’s Health Essentials and Consult QD, The Hospitalist, WebMD, McKesson Medical-Surgical, ADHDOnline, HealthCentral, MedShadow Foundation, Verywell Health, HealthTrust, and Foundations Recovery Network.

Other non-health outlets that I’ve written and edited for include Ancestry, AARP Brand Amp, Security Magazine, AmerisourceBergen, The Christian Science Monitor, MOPS International, TWINS Magazine, CSO Online, dormakaba, Motherhood, and others.

I also wrote essays for the secondary school English portion of the ACT Test and briefly blogged for Psychology Today.com. Before my kids asked that I stop writing about them publicly, I wrote frequently about parenting on my blog Parenting by Trial and Error. I’m in the process of moving the blog, which I keep around for both unedited examples of my writing and sentimental reasons.

I have years of experience with content marketing through writing for companies and brands such as McKesson Medical-Surgical, McKesson Health Mart, AmerisourceBergen, Radisson Hotels, Allstate, ExxonMobil, Menards, GreatCall, Webroot, Always, Livalo, Foundations Recovery Network, ADT Security, AARP Brand Amp, Tribune Brand Publishing, AGCO, Massey Ferguson and more. I understand the importance of improving both trust and revenue through creative, informational content and good storytelling. 

I’m great at taking complex health studies and topics and parsing them into language that the average reader can easily understand, but I also write for physician audiences. I copyedit and proofread print and web materials as well, so I’m familiar with a wide variety of platforms, apps, and style guides (my favorite is Chicago).

Academic History

I have a B.A. in English with a writing emphasis and a minor in history. In 2014, I decided to go back to school to get my master’s degree in counseling. A year in, I ended up landing so much work in mental health content — simply because I was working on the degree — that I decided to pursue more health writing instead.

A Bit About Me

Some people are writers by chance, some by circumstance, and some by necessity. I'm a writer by birth. My history is similar to that of many innate writers — I started reading at an early age and I've been scribbling stories, essays, poetry, and journal entries ever since I was able.

I’m based in rural South Dakota where I live on a small acreage with my family. A few of the many things I love: a well-told story; gorgeous South Dakota sunsets; books (I have a small library strewn throughout my 1906 farmhouse); traveling; understanding what makes my family and friends tick; seafood; craft beer (especially hazy IPAs); a good bottle of wine; camping; boating; and getting a new assignment or client in my inbox.

The Story Behind the Name

When I was somewhere between six and seven years old, I inherited a one-piece blue-and-white-striped footie sleeper from my younger but taller cousin. They even had a flap in the back with two buttons. My dad started calling me "Blue Zebra" from that day on. The name got shortened to "Zeebie" and finally "Zeeb" by the time I was a teenager, but it will always be my childhood nickname, a name that brings back memories of playgrounds with twisty slides and my dad chasing me around with a can of slime; of family gatherings with my cousins and hours of swimming with my sisters; and of a time when my worst problem was my mom making me wear a dress to school once a week.