My experience in translation ranges from freelance work on French instructional videos and Austrian marketing campaigns to published literary translations from French, German, and Yiddish. Among other interesting projects, I had the privilege of being the first English translator of the German expressionist poet Ernst Blass (previously rendered only into Polish and Spanish).
Learning an endangered, minoritized language as an adult has given me a keen awareness of the role language plays in issues ranging from individual mental health and emotional well-being to community cohesion and Indigenous sovereignty. Informed by my background in ESL instruction and in librarianship, I engage in research and activism around linguistic equity, with a particular emphasis on the role of libraries and the publishing industry in language shift and policy. Examples of my work in these areas include attempts to secure a firmer legal footing for minoritized-language collections and services in US libraries, inclusion of linguistic equity criteria in the DEI category of the LPC Publishing Practice Awards, and investigation into how elements from queer theory can inform design of library exhibits to help marginalized language communities recover from historical traumas.
A full bibliography of my publications and presentations in this area can be found on my CV.