Helen’s photography and written work have received numerous awards and recognition, including placing first in the 2009 Word Worth Essay and Fiction Contest, and The Starving Writer Literary contest twice. She was one of seven finalists for the 2011 Annie Dillard Creative Nonfiction Award, as well as a Maine Literary Award repeat finalist. She has an M.F.A. in creative writing from the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA program at the University of Southern Maine where she returns as an alumna to teach and photograph. Helen’s debut memoir, Pigs Can’t Swim, is a 2014 Indie Introduce and an Indie Next title, which she still can't believe. She is currently working on a YA novel (about horses) and her second memoir, Chasing the Light (how photography changed her life). She lives in the Portland, Maine area with her husband and children where she donates her photography to a wide range of animal rescue groups. Although she has a strict rule that she will not adopt any homeless animal that she is asked photograph, she has 3 dogs, 2 horses, 5 cats and 4 elderly live-in rabbits. The horses were not rescues but an I can't-live-without-them purchase that was spurred on by her ten-year-old daughter. Now what she really wants is to sell her house and buy a home with half a dozen acres in the country, which is ironic because she spent her entire childhood trying to get to the city.