My name is EVEN Christine Gardiner, and I know what it means to live a double life.
Growing up, there was one face I showed the world. I was a strong student and a gifted writer from a “good” family. I won awards and went to the best schools.
Behind the scenes, though, I was living with a secret: I knew that my father, Brien Gardiner, was a fraud.
These two realities dissolved into each other when a series of investigative reports in The Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that my father had built a network of charter schools and business entities through which he stole millions in taxpayer dollars.
He was under federal investigation when he committed suicide in 2009—taking his secrets to the grave.
His story is a matter of public record, but I know the whole truth has never been told, and I feel it my responsibility to “write” his wrongs.
So I’ve reopened my father’s case. Over the course of the past year, I’ve spent hundreds of hours researching the newspaper archives, reviewing legal documents, and interviewing witnesses and victims of his crimes.
Investigative Poetics is a series of essays that explore themes of memory, complicity, and shame. It’s a psychological study of my relationship with my father that explores what I knew—consciously and subconsciously—and the lies I told myself—and the world—in order to survive.
On the surface, it may seem like a dark journey, but I believe that writing is medicine, and this investigation has been a process of transformation and reconciliation.
Even if I don’t solve the mystery, by writing the story, I hope to move beyond it.
I’m the author of the poetry collection My Sister’s Father and the blog Pet Murmur.
I taught writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels for over a decade, and now I work as a coach—helping writers to find their voice, develop their craft, and imagine the possibilities of storytelling in a new age.
You can read more about my work here.
Special thanks to DW (David Rothstein), who suggested that I undertake this “investigation” and is, in many ways, the conceptual architect of this work; to Martha Woodall, who first broke the news and wrote the public record; and to the many contributors who have shared their voices and memories.
Thank you to the visual artists—Nicole Franco (logo and graphics), Jeanny Tsai (photography), and Marko Jokic (web design)—who have shaped the aesthetics of this project.
Immense gratitude to my mentors Ash Ahmad and Vereline McClaney for holding space and seeing the vision—and to the team at Start Small Think Big for your guidance and support.
And, finally, thank you to my family for their faith and courage.
Join me as I unravel my father’s crimes, examining the price of shame and the consequences of our lies.
Because “Poetry is what survives.”
