Creative Writing

Selected Prose

Novel Excerpt

Clearing Ground (formerly Farewell, Mr. Garcia). Petigru Review. 2020. [Read]

“A soft, staccato patter of footsteps came from the other end of the hall. My heartbeat throbbed in my ears. I fumbled for the spare set of car keys in my pocket and tried to pull up my tennis shoes from the tiled floor, but my legs had frozen.”

Clearing Ground is a complete, 96,000-word manuscript of upmarket literary fiction and psychological realism that is in the final stages of editing. Set in Ashford, Illinois between 1995 and 2012, CLEARING GROUND follows Nora Hall, a survivor of a middle school shooting whose unidentified perpetrator leaves her community suspended in fear. As Nora is drawn back to Foxwood during her teens and early adulthood, she grapples with survivor’s guilt while trying to support her peers’ recovery. But as she seeks closure, she must confront whether tending to others’ wounds is a way of avoiding her own. Fifteen years later, the shooter is finally identified, just as Nora begins to rebuild her life, pulling her back into the shadow of a violence she thought she had survived.

Short Story

Still Life. Redwood Writers Prose Anthology: One Universe to the Left. 2023. [Available in Print]

“As the clock struck eight, Maria shoved the rickety cheese cart across the stone path bisecting the town square. The bell’s vibrations rippled through her frantic brain. She was late to market. Again.”

Flash Fiction

Maybe It Was. 1st Place CWC Marin Flash Contest. 2025. [Read]

“I can’t remember the exact moment I fell in love with Willa Curran. Maybe it was the summer after 4th grade, when our neighbor Ms. Merveille turned 90 and decided to chase her every long-deferred dream before time ran out.”