About

I’m Rebecca, multi-genre writer, editor, and owner of the Rust Belt Girl blog. Welcome to my site. 

Literary citizenship is my thing. Read as much as you write. Alpha-read, beta-read, omega-read. Review and share the good book news. Serve as a lit mag editor or reader to push stellar writing into the world. What goes around …  

A Northeast Ohio native, I was a Pell Grant kid who earned an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in fiction from Virginia Commonwealth University. My WIP is a dual-timeline historical novel about the healing power of song. When I’m not writing, I’m singing—in a choir, at weddings and funerals. There are so many ways to raise your voice.

In addition to my journalism and comms. work in higher ed., I’ve served as a features editor for a literary journal. At the moment, I’m exercising my editing chops as co-editor of an anthology of essays and articles on dance and health for the Connective Tissue series from WVU Press. Like everyone else, I have a substack. I run Rust Belt Girl, to hype the poets and writers from my native region. I’m a proud member of the Little Red Writing Hoods critique group out of NE Ohio. And I return each year to attend Lit Youngstown’s Fall Literary Festival. (So, maybe you can go home again?)

Before this life in words, I was a dancer, who grew up in the ballet studio. The arts, health and wellness, and faith and spirituality inform my literary practice. I mean, if I ever had one lane, I’m completely useless at staying in it.

I live with my family in Maryland. They’re great.