She earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an M.F.A. from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Creative Writing Program. Van Dam has lived abroad in Tanzania, Malaysia, and Mexico, and has traveled widely. She’s recently completed a novel and received an Honorable Mention for an essay in the New Millennium Writings competition. Her work has appeared in Traverse Magazine, Further North, Mothering, Ceramics Monthly, Running Times, The U.P. Environment, and elsewhere.