Carrie graduated Cum Laude from Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan with a degree in teaching Language Arts, and a minor in Psychology. Her teaching career began in the thumb of Michigan where she enjoyed the close-knit community of Brown City, and many snow days. After a year of commuting an hour each way to school, and a newborn baby at home, Carrie decided to look for a teaching position closer to her hometown of Burton, Michigan. This led her back to where she was born, Flint, teaching 11th and 12th grade English at Carman-Ainsworth high school. Even though the population was immense compared to her years growing up in the small corridors of Bendle high school and rookie-teaching at Brown City Community Schools, the diverse school community welcomed Carrie like an old colleague fresh out of retirement. She continues learning there each day.
A graduate publishing class at the University of Michigan-Flint gave Carrie the opportunity and time to learn more about writing and publishing in the summer of 2008. That is where her first published children’s story began. As a surprise, Carrie’s loving parents published Papa, Why Does the Wind Blow? for her as a birthday present. They are Carrie’s greatest fans, in all walks of her very-busy life. Since then Carrie has enjoyed learning about publishing through various trials and tribulations as an author and editor. Currently Carrie is working on a new YA novel. Her latest publication is the 2014 Nanowrimo novel, Dread. She was also asked to participate in a few anthologies, as well as a few guest blogs for educational organizations. In addition, she is featured in a Project Based Learning textbook as well as mentioned in Linguistic Justice by Dr. April Baker-Bell.
Carrie’s inspiration comes from real events she reads about in the newspapers and things she experiences each day as a teacher, mother, and wife. Dread was inspired by a slave cemetery she and her uncle snuck into in Georgia one evening, as well as a newspaper article her friend Dan sent to her about kids getting scared out of their wits at a local covered bridge.
When she’s not actively fighting against oppression, reading, or writing, Carrie enjoys reading, practicing paddle board yoga, watching the Food Network while eating crackers and cheese, chasing after her four adorable children, and traveling the world with her baby-face husband.