Sam (he/they/she) is a Development Writer/Editor who specializes in human-centered storytelling. Previously, they served as Donor Communications Coordinator for more than four years at Berea College, where no students pay tuition.

Prior to joining Berea College, Sam served as an educator, youth worker, and racial reconciliation co-facilitator in Southern Illinois and throughout the Mississippi Delta. At Berea College, she co-developed the IDEA Circle, a campus-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion justice (DEIJ) initiative based on trauma-informed transformative justice circle practices. 

Sam was born in coastal Georgia and raised in Southern Illinois, and their extended family is rooted in Appalachian Kentucky. He earned his master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of Mississippi. In addition to writing his own fiction, Sam also teaches creative writing at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky.