About Me

And she said

I am like the dandelion

wild and free

I travel with the wind

I am seeds and sparrows

I am pulled out by the roots

and I grow again.

Jessica Nudel. "The Dandelion Woman."

Published in A Pagan's Muse, from Citadel Press, 2003.

As someone who grew up the child of a single-mother, the library was a haven for me. I read and read and read: books to entertain, to travel, to explore universes untold.

I've taught college-level English and Composition for 15+ years at various universities in the South. Now, I'm on "the other side" of the graduation borderline to teach younger students at an amazing school that I absolutely love. I've taught Honors & AP Language & Composition, as well as Literature. I was the yearbook advisor in the 2016-2017 school year and will be that this year, too.  

When I teach, I am happiest teaching multi-layered literature using as many pathways in as possible (from lecture to creative writing to online technology), to share new ideas, and to meet the faces I see every day in the classroom. I often tell students the secret to happiness is to find something you would do every day, even for free, and then find a job that does that.

My whole life, I've been a wanderer. My mom started it-- she couldn't stay put, either, and as she moved us where the good jobs were, we rarely stayed in one place. We traveled around the country, from Illinois, where I was born, to Kentucky, to Louisiana, to Mississippi and then to Florida, where I attended high school and started college. I lived in Texas for a long time, then Louisiana, and now, I'm back in Texas!

I traveled briefly to London & Paris in 2002 and cannot wait to go back there for a longer period of time someday for a visit. In spite of the fact that I am an "American Lit" person, my favorite days in London were touring Shakespeare's haunts and finding my little Wife of Bath charm in Canterbury Cathedral and peering around the Bloomsbury district where Virginia Woolf once roamed.

Women's Literature, especially Minority Lit and Feminism, Popular Culture and Film Studies are my favorite paths into American Literature of all kinds. I teach American Literature from the founding of the colonies to today. I strongly believe the traditional canon of American Literature is enhanced, illuminated, and strengthened when we teach ALL of America's aspects of literary genius, together. The literature informs my teaching of writing and composition, always.

When I create a syllabus, it's SO hard to limit the authors because I truly want to show my students an entire world of literature in such a short time!