Ingrid’s first collection of poetry, It Started with the Wild Horses, is now available from Finishing Line Press. The book explores how our experiences and relationships become memory; how encountering the wilderness outside our doors shapes us; and how a sense of place tells us who we are. Readers travel from Greece to California, from the Sierra Nevada to the rivers of Washington, from adolescence to parenthood, from classroom to orchard, and from grief to hope.
Ingrid grew up in the little town of Fairfax in the San Francisco Bay Area. She studied creative writing in the MFA program at Eastern Washington University. Returning to California in 2000, she began her teaching career at Modesto Junior College and became an active member of the local community of writers. Her poems appeared in the anthology More Than Soil, More Than Sky. Her poems have also appeared in such literary magazines as Poetry Now Online, Blue Unicorn, Steam Ticket, Stanislaus Connections, and Sisyphus. Since 2013, Ingrid has lived and taught community college students in the Sierra Nevada foothills. She has also led workshops for local groups such as Sierra Writers.
Ingrid is inspired by the wild nature of California, her writing students, her children, and poets such as Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Ellen Bass, Indigo Moor, and Molly Fisk. When it comes to writing poetry, she believes in Richard Hugo’s advice: “You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.” Her philosophy about the creative process is that we must always be aware of its two-fold nature: first comes the expression itself, and that must be recognized as something quite fragile. Then, ideally, the sharing of that writing can follow. The value of critiques and support from a community of fellow writers cannot be underestimated, and Ingrid deeply values the inspiration and guidance she receives from other writers in Nevada County and beyond.
