Hey there! I'm a songwriting soul who believes in the wild, transformative power of beauty to heal our fractured world. My story starts in the cornfields of Iowa, takes a sharp left turn to the underground metro stations of post-Soviet Moscow (yeah, you read that right), and winds its way through countless coffee shops, concert halls, and even the halls of the CIA (more on that later).

At 12, I figured out I could turn my diary scribbles into melodies, and I've been chasing that magic ever since. Twenty-five years, hundreds of songs, and 50 released tracks later, I'm still that kid who believes in the power of a good hook and an honest story.

My tune "We Are the Dreamers" somehow found its way onto "Dance Moms" (life is weird like that) and ended up with half a million Spotify streams and millions of YouTube views. The song whispers, "Beauty's a flower in need of showers, and time" – words that have become my accidental manifesto. I've been lucky enough to share my music with over 200,000 beautiful souls across 200+ stages, from opening for the classic rockers America to serenading the Secretary of State (told you the CIA thing would come back around).

Speaking of plot twists, I spent my early twenties as an intelligence analyst by day and a pub singer by night. Turns out, the most important intelligence isn't found in classified documents but in the universal language of a melody that makes strangers feel like family. My Nashville years brought collaborations with brilliant writers like Adrianne E. Gonzalez and Michael Logan, and even a brief adventure as a pop artist under the name DANAE (we all have our experimental phases, right?).

These days, you'll find me in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where I split my time between writing songs and practicing Kintsugi – the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere about beauty and brokenness, but I'll let you connect those dots. Through my outfit Artistic Leadership, I get to help others unlock their creative superpowers, because let's face it – we're all artists trying to figure out how to make our mark on this wild world.

As writer George Saunders says, we find our voice through "thousands of small decisions." Well, I'm still making those decisions, still writing those songs, still believing that music can create magic between strangers without a single shared word. Whether I'm in your local coffee shop or your company's board room, I'm here to remind you that your creative voice matters – and maybe even get you singing along the way.

P.S. Yes, I really did work for the CIA, and no, I can't tell you the classified secrets. But I can teach you about mending broken pottery with gold while singing folk songs. Life's funny like that.