Claire received degrees in Creative Writing from Pratt Institute (BFA) and the University of Arizona (MFA). She has had alternating and often overlapping experiences as a writer, farmer, and nonprofit worker.
In New Mexico, Claire worked as a Grant Writer for Southwest Youth Services at the Native American Community Academy and as a Resource Technician for the U.S. Forest Service. In Tucson, she was an English Lecturer at the University of Arizona and a Farm Assistant at Las Milpitas Community Farm.
While completing a Stegner Fellowship in poetry from Stanford University, Claire worked as a Farm Hand at Radical Family Farms, an Asian heritage CSA farm, and as a Garden & Education Manager at City Slicker Farms.
Her book of poems, Upend, retraces the immigration trial of her orphaned grandfather who was an Alaska Native and Chinese cook in San Francisco Chinatown.